Bombshell
by NovaStars42
Summary: May nearly drowns and wakes up to find a certain blonde bomber has saved her. It's a scramble to learn the ways of the shinobi before she gets killed, but what about falling in love? Who knows Deidara is still alive besides her? DeidaraXOc Squeal, Miss Atomic Bomb, is started and up!
1. Chapter 1

I awoke with a gasp, My throat hurt. My chest jerked, and I wrenched, warm water expelling from my mouth and between my legs, my head now lay between my knees as I gasped for more air.

"Your awake?" I heard a male voice, sounding to be infront of me. I was laying on my stomach, and I braced my arms, sitting straight up. I looked into his blue eyes before taking a longer look at him, and there he was, a blond man, hair covering the right side of his face. I could see, immediately, I had no idea where I was, and who this guy was? No clue.

"You almost drowned you know, yeah" he said,

"Yeah?" I asked, mocking him, and then realized it was a verbal tick. I felt a little bad, like id made fun of him.

"Do you even know what happened hmm?" He asked, and I shook my head.

"I hauled you out of that lake there, yeah," I looked behind me, yes that certainly was a lake.

"Come on May!" My friends urged, but I wasn't to convinced. The lake water was brown and murky, I couldn't see the bottom and I did not want to get filthy in the nasty looking water. My group was already in, and only I stood on the bank.

"Just jump!" My best friend, Jenny called,

I bawked a bit longer before deciding finally just to jump with my eyes closed. I flung myself from the bank, splashing in, and rising to the top. It wasn't that bad, on second thought. The lake was longer than it was wide, and that made it perfect for races. Jenny was the first to challenge, she was on the swim team, and we all knew she would win, but what the heck, I decided to be a good sport and race her anyway. Besides, I was a strong swimmer. We both hauled ourselves out of the water and started by diving from the bank. I'd jumped a bit further than she had, and I started out farther, but by a third of the way across she was was ahead of me. I was not about to give up without a fight though! I kept swimming, watching her back draw farther and farther from me. I was heaving, my legs hurt, and as I looked back, I realized it was to late. I was stuck in the middle of this lake, and exhausted. I tried to fight it, but the longer I fought, the more I realized, I was in deep shit. I tried to yell, but my mouth filled with water and I was sinking.

I kept fighting, but it was no use. I was drowning.

However I had not drowned. I was awake, and here, on the other side of the lake.

"There were some girls and a guy here with me, have you seen them?" I asked, finding it strange my friends hadn't stayed with me. I knew them. They wouldn't just leave me.

"We arnt near a village or even a town un, I don't think there are any people within a few kilometers," he answered, pulling something out of a large bag. A lighter maybe? Who uses kilometers here?

"What do you mean?" I asked confused, "there were six of us, we drove here in my friend Jake's car,"

"I'm not sure what a car is, you must have hit your head, is that why you fell in un?" He asked, and stood.

"No, no," I was panicking now, "my friends were here, they couldn't have left,"

"I've been camped near here for two days, no one has been around," he said very calmly, "listen, relax, we'll figure this out,"

I sighed, and he came to me, and held out his hand, "let's go find some firewood hmm,"

I weighed my options quickly. It wasn't right to talk to strangers, at 17 I was smart enough to know this, but he'd just saved my life, and if he was going to rape me he would have done so already, right? I decided he was alright, and took his hand. My legs felt a bit shaky, but I made it to my feet and soon we were out, picking up some dry brush and small branches.

"Is it ok if it's sort of rotten?" I turned and asked, but my rescuer wasn't there. Suddenly a large, but then branch was thrown to my feet, I looked up, and there he was up an impossibly large tree. I gawked at him, and he smilied,

"What's wrong?" He asked, and jumped. What was he doing trying to kill himself?! I wanted to scream, I opened my mouth but no sound came out, and quickly I turned and covered my eyes. I waited to hear something a crash maybe, but I never did.

"What's the matter with you un" I heard his voice, and I spun around.

"Y-your alive!" I exclaimed, "how can that be you jumped from like, thirty feet!"

"I dunno about feet, but it wasn't that big of a deal. Where are you from exactly?" He asked, "Haven't you ever seen a shinobi before?"

It was dark now, and we had our fire started. We'd spent the last half an hour maybe, trying to figure out exactly what was going on. So far we'd gotten no where. He'd been coming up with strange names I'd never heard of, and it occurred to me maybe he'd been the one to hit his head.

"Just where exactly are you from?" He asked finally.

"..southern ohio," I answered hesitantly,

"Japan?" He asked,

"No, United States," I said, fairly upset now, I sort of wanted to cry.

"Something's going on here, when you went swimming, where'd you start at?"

"Southern ohio," I answered. I'd already told him that.

"And you said you were racing with your friend? And you woke up here?" He asked, I nodded, "you know come to think of it, I couldn't sense you until I saw you floating un,"

It was silent for a while. We'd both given up on figuring out what happened.

"What's your name? I'm May," my tone wasn't shy, I was quite comfortable at this point with him.

"I'm uh," he paused, " oh what the hell, I'm Deidara," he smilied.

"And your a uh, shibu?" Was that the word he used? He laughed, apparently not.

"Yes, I'm a shinobi, un, I defected from my village and uh, I'm sort of on the run,"

I wasn't entirely sure what to say to that.

"I like explosives un," he explained, "and so I left after I got in trouble, so after I was forced to join an organization, but that's ok, I hated those assholes anyway,"

His words weren't very reassuring, was he pretty much just telling me that he was a terrorist? I wondered why he was sharing this stuff with me if he was on the run?

"And uh, what exactly do shinobi do?" I asked pronouncing each syllable in shinobi.

"Uh, missions mostly, and we fight," he answered, sort of vaguely I might add. I left it alone, but he continued speaking.

"I can take you to a town tomorrow, but for right now your going to have to stay with me, that is, if you want to hmm,"

I nodded, realizing not only was I lost, but I was completely dumb to, where ever it was I had stumbled upon. He threw me a spare sleeping bag, and we made camp around the wood we'd gathered, which was now a fire. He had some sort of round pills, which he called soldier pills, and that was our surprisingly filling dinner.

"So if your on the run, what are you doing talking with me? You seen so nice," I remarked, but he just gave me a small smilie, I couldn't really read it, it looked almost impressed, but also very sarcastic.

"That's nice of you to say that un, but the only reason I'm sharing is because everyone else thinks I'm dead. See, I know for a fact you aren't a threat, what the hell you you gonna do yeah? You don't even know what a ninja is," he laughed a bit at the end. I wanted to tell him I did so know what a ninja was, just not a shinobi, but I kept my mouth shut about that.

"So seeing as your still here, I'm gonna assume you faked your death?" I responded, he nodded.

"Yeah, in an explosion. It was beautiful," he pulled a glob of what looked like clay, dark and earthy, and I saw it disappear into his hands. What was this a magic trick? Moments later, a tiny, very intricate clay bird appeared.

"I'm focusing more on details now un, in the past it was just explosives," the bird flew from his hands, and I was completely amazed. It few above the fire and promptly exploded. My jaw nearly dropped, how did he do that with no fuse?

"How?" Was all I could muster, turning to him now. His smilie never left his face as he turned his hands over. At first all I could see were lines, and much to my surprise, or disgust I couldn't tell, the lines moved, opening to reveal a pair of mouths, complete with tongues.

"W-what?" I stuttered, getting up from my spot, and coming to his side. I took his hands in mine, my thumbs on the joint where his thumbs met his palms, the backs of his hands in mine. "No way.."

"Yeah, it's a family trait, kekki genkai," a long conversation flowed late into the night about chakra, a force ninja used, and his explosions, the village he came from, something about hidden rocks, and about explosions. I listened to his views on art, I myself being a painter, I agreed with him about how poetic it was that explosions stayed for so short of a time, but were yet so beautiful, thinking back to the fireworks back home.

Home, how would I even get home? Though the lake maybe? But I was too afraid to try, I might actually drown this time and take my new friend with me if he had to save me again. I decided to find someone who knew more about it than I. Besides, Deidara wasn't that bad. It's not like I didn't want to go home, I was just one of those selfishly unhappy people, with so much going, but still I felt depressed. Sure, my mom dad and friends were great, but I couldn't help but feel deeply unhappy. This was an adventure, and fully understanding my choice, I decided to not mention anything about home to Deidara.

My newfound friend chatted with me until the wood ran out, and he decided we should probably get some sleep. I passed out, only to be awoken much to soon the next morning. The light was barely over the trees as he shook me awake.

"Mei," his tone was hushed and urgent, "Get up, someone is coming this way,"

We were quick to bug out, leaving the lake and our campsite behind, he quickly stored our things in a scroll, much to my amazement, and we walked off. There was no clear path to this forest, so we battled the underbrush for hours until finally coming to a road. It seemed who ever was coming wasn't fallowing us, so there was no rush when we headed up the road to the right.

"I'm going to try and commander myself a horse in the next town, so I don't think it's best you tell anyone you came with me," he stated, some of the first words I'd heard him speak today. I wasn't sure why he was so talkative last night, but not today.

"Would you mind if I traveled with you instead?" I asked very bluntly. Something I was certainly good at was getting to the point.

"You sure about that?" He asked, his eyebrow raised, "it's dangerous, and if they found us you could be killed,"

With that warning I thought for a moment.

"How long have you been on the run?"

He was quiet, thinking I assumed for several more steps until he answered,

"I was nineteen when, and then, uh, so I guess around three years,"

I smirked, yeah, it sounded like this was dangerous, compared to my world where you were usually caught within days or weeks of a crime, three years, probably longer than that since he mentioned last night he was part of organized crime, sounded fine.

"Yeah, I think I'll be alright," I said, responding to his original question. I was sure.

He didn't want to talk anymore, and made that known, and when we reached the village, he was careful with money, stalking up on those pills and weapons, Apparently one lost a lot of them while hunting, and water. I had a chance now to look him over, he and I being around the same hight, five foot something, maybe four inches. Little for a guy in American standards. What was he saying again? He was nineteen three years ago, making him twenty two? Sure, we'll go with that.

After our supplies pick up, we headed to what Deidara called a horse flipper, someone who buys and sells horses for more than he purchased them for. The horse flipper was a greasy older man, maybe in his fifties judging by his greeting hair, who tried to sell us some older looking ratty nag as soon as we walked in the door.

"I need a riding horse," Deidara demanded, clearly not going to put up with any of this mans dirty deals. " that pile of bones can hardly support itself,"

The flipper sneered, "well then, I can clearly see you and your lady friend need something more regal for a traveling pair, please, fallow me," Deidara narrowed his eyes, as if weary of some sort of trap, but we followed him regardless, my blonde companion clearly on edge.

Behind the initial building was a compound consisting of paddocks with far to many horses to support on the grass given in the space, and manure mostly. A few of the pens had shelters, but the roofs had holes and I did not imagine it did the equines much good.

The first horse brought to us to look at was gray, but looked brown as dirty as he was. Deidara checked his legs, and opened his mouth to check teeth before passing him off. A chestnut brought next, but as soon as her tiny foal peaked his head around, Deidara passed her off to, much to my chagrin. I liked the baby, and it was a two for one, the man said.

The last horse brought to us was a sturdy bay, straight legs and a square shoulders, finely balanced and we were told he came off of a racetrack.

"Yeah, maybe five years ago," Deidara huffed, judging by the animals ribs and protruding hip bones, he was right.

"twenty thousand yen," The dealer smacked the first price on the proverbial table.

"Oh no, hell no," Deidara countered, "I'll pay maybe six hundred,"

"No deal, ten thousand," the greeseball came back,

"Seven thousand five hundred, cash, and I ride him off this lot right now,"

"Deal," The man grinned, his smiling curling over yellow teeth. Our horse was took away, and I stood in the yard, kinda lost as Deidara went ti sign papers. I waited, and waited, and it seemed Deidara would never come out. Two men returned from, what I assumed to be a training ride on a spindly legged, lanky pony, and I watched. They didn't treat them unfairly, or mean, but certainly not good. Then someone tapped my shoulders, and surprised I spun around, to find our horse standing, saddle and all. A man thrust the reins in my direction, and I held him. Horses made me nervous, I never even wanted to ride the ponies at the circus, so I was sort of nervous, holding him as far away from me as possible, reins out all the way, my arm extended full length. Suddenly there was a great commotion inside, The door burst open, and a cloud of smoke billowed out, Deidara emerged from the smoke, and with a jump that almost seemed to fly, landed on the horses back. The horse of course, flipped complete shit, and reared, I let go of the reins, where they went I'll never know, and suddenly Deidara had them in his hands, and with a harsh kick to the stallions sides, they took off, jumping a fence and heading off.

"Deidara!" I screamed, had he really just left me here?

"Grab her!" I heard, I spun around, the horse flipper stood in the doorway coughing, his hair nearly all burned off and his skin singed.

"Come here!" One man yelled, running towards me, and suddenly so were many others. Screaming, I made a run for it, There were those ponies! Upon the commotion, thew ponies spooked, and I dashed to them, pulling one rope free, and running with him. Now how was I going to get up there? I couldn't exactly vault up there like Deidara did. I wasn't getting anywhere with this freaked out pony, his shoulders were maybe my height, and his saddle looked like it might give any moment under an rider, so eventually I just grabbed some mane and jumped, I landed with my foot half on the saddle, my other leg dangling.

"Just get off the horse!" one man yelled,

I couldn't, not now. My hands were fisted in the horses hair, The scared pony moved sideways, away from me, unbalancing me and I nearly fell fall on my back. I couldn't, no, I couldn't give up, it wouldn't end here like it did at the lake. I slipped, just as I predicted I would, and with the motion it took me to fall, I pushed off the ground, getting myself in almost the exact same position. Though this time, I used my weight to push myself over the crest of the animals back, and finally I was on.

People crowded around as finally I picked up the reins, and I repeated the action Deidara made, blasting the pony. The men moved, no wanting to be trampled by a mess off hooves as now I found his companion running with us as we took off. There was no place to go, The gates were closed. A few of the guys had ropes now, I gasped for air, I couldn't think. My pony's legs were too short for a jump over the fence, but I had to try! There was no other way out!

"Ha!" I yelled, taking up hair into my hands again, I shut my eyes and held on best I could, I flt us lift, on what I assumed to be over the fence, and sort of an unhealthy grunting noise came from his nose as I felt us land. I slammed back down into the saddle, and we were off. I was gone from the village in mere moments. His legs were short, but what he made up for in stature, he made up for in speed. If anyone was a race horse, it was this guy. Our lungs heaved in unison. When I judged us a safe distance from the village, I slowed my pony down from a full gallop to a walk, and we both took a breather.

I couldn't believe he'd just left me like that! How could he! Then again, really I was just a nuisance to him I reasoned, feeling a bit bad. I couldn't stop, I had no means of direction, or any provisions, so I hoped only if only Deidara was waiting on the path up ahead. He was not.

I untied my pony from the tree I had previously had him hooked too, I wasn't sure with that metal thing in his mouth if he could eat, but he certainly did as I bathed in a nearby creek. I dressed and petted his neck a moment, before setting off. I was hungry, I really had no idea how to fend for myself, and it had been three days since I had seen Deidara. I walked my horse to the next town, no point in running if I had no where to run to. At least he was well taken care of, taking snacks for the road with him. I dismounted, tieing him to a post outside an inn, I walked my sorry self inside.

"Sorta early for someone to be turning in this early," the clerk remarked. I just nodded,

"I don't have any money, I've been three days without much to eat," I confessed, I had no idea what else to do, and with a surprised face, he opened his mouth to speak,

"That's really funny," My ears snapped, Deidara! Coming down the stairs, in all his glory, there he was. The blonde bomber smirked at me, coming over and putting his arm around me, "My girlfriend just likes to exaggerate, We got lost from each other last night in the woods, I'm glad you found me yeah. Come on dear, lets go up to the room, we'll get you something to eat,"


	2. Chapter 2

Hey all! Hope you like this new chapter! I'm gonna try to crank out a new one every week. If you see anything that needs to be fixed, shoot me a note or something! I'd love to hear from you and get some feed back on my writing!

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"Just why the hell did you fallow me? Do you not understand what it means when someone leaves you?" He said, slamming the door angrily behind him.

"What the fuck do you think your doing there? Just leaving me? What? Get arrested in your place?" I yelled, upset, but I'd done nothing wrong, and he wasn't going to act like I did, though I wasn't optional at arguing. "Your fucking stuck with me, that's it, I don't even care!"

I was meet then with a knife to my neck. It was short, and diamond shaped, four sides, a hole in the end with the shaft wrapped in bandages. In a flash of a second, I didn't even see it, I didn't even see him pull it out. Shit he was quick. He was going to kill me I feared, why else did you put a blade to someones skin?

"Shut up, just shut your mouth, stop screaming, you'll attract attention. Listen, I can't be weighed down by you, I just can't. I don't have time, and I can't be carting your ass around," He sighed, and I feared he would end me. What? This was nothing to him?

"I can keep up! I promise I can keep up with you!" I pleaded, nearly crying, "Please don't kill me, please, I promise I'll keep up and if I don't you can leave me!" He thought for a moment, finally he took the knife from my neck.

"And you promise you'll keep up?" He asked, I nodded, "Fine, but I won't just leave you, I'll kill you un. I'll make sure of it."

He walked to the other side of the room, to the window, putting the away the knife. I dropped to the ground, my heart beating fast, and gasping for breathe, I hiccuped a few times, my eyes watered until I finally crying a bit, but I quickly remembered what he'd say about falling behind, and stopped. Crying impaired a person, and an impaired person was week, and, there for, fell behind. My life depended on getting stronger. It was a chore to stop the tears, but once I regained myself, I was okay. I'm not sure how long we were there, but he was the first to speak as silence settled over the room.

"That's your pony you stole?" He asked, looking outside, he must have seen my buddy tired to the post, right where I left him. Was it even a pony though? Whats the difference between a pony and a horse? I didn't know. I was afraid of them, but how could I say that I was afraid of him after he'd supported me for three days?

"Mhm," I said quietly.

"Were gonna liquidate our stock, the bay can ride two," I didn't say anything, just let him work the dealings and the money. Hopefully we could eat in a restaurant tonight. We left the inn again, and walked the skinny beast down to the market part of town. I observed the surroundings, people shouting all over, cows pulling carts, signs in Japanese, a priest shouting about how the end was near, so much at once. Booths sold cloths and shoes, piles of spices and racks of fish, fresh baked bread and a weapons salesman or two. This was so much cooler than a strip mall. In a small corner of the market, there was an auction going, conducted by the owners of the animals, people shouted a bid, and the owner could accept or decline. When it was our turn, we stepped up, but the crowd was silent.

"No one wants him," I whispered,

"Just wait," he said, but no one spoke, just the dull roar of the market.

"Fifty yen!" one man finally shouted, I looked over.

He was a taller guy, two kids with him, one holding each legs. A taller girl and a younger boy that looked like his spitting image. They looked poor, that was probably a lot for a horse. He chewed on a stick, his daughter whining.

"I got an idea, how about I take him for free and you get out of the way!" another man shouted, the crowd laughed. I blushed. Looking to Deidara fr help, I found his scowling face.

"Just take the fifty yen, come on, these guys are getting impatient!" I whispered,

"One hundred, lowest I'll go," Deidara said firmly. He refused to move, and refused to answer the man.

"Fifty!" he shouted again, but Deidara ignored him.

But really? Who was gonna pay on hundred dollars, er, yen, for a scraggly pony with bad looking legs? I mean come on you cheep bastard, lets get out of here! I said nothing, and kept my face forward, an embarrassed simile on my face. I looked the crowd in the face, and they looked at us, no one budged. We'd just stolen this horse, and now we were selling it, plus wasn't he also a fugitive? This was dangerous, we needed to loose this horse and get away from peoples eyes.

"Fifty? Do I hear fifty?" I yelled suddenly, surprising even the pony, "Forty Five do I hear forty five? No? Forty, I bet I hear forty,"

The men looked at each other, their faces held confusion, I'd seen this only in the movies, but I couldn't go nearly as fast as they did on TV. One younger man hesitantly raised his hand.

"Forty! I've got forty! Forty five! I hear forty five! Come on folks, look at this gorgeous animal! He's a six time champion!" I had two more hands rise. Yes! It was working! Deidara looked at me with discontent.

"Just what the hell are you doing?" He whispered, grabbing my arm roughly.

"I've got fifty five then! I've got fifty five!" But the hands went down, "Fifty!"

The auction was buzzing now. 'What is this crazy girl there doing?' They must have been thinking, I didn't even know myself. It was only that same man that raised his hand. His daughter off of his leg now and staring me in the eyes. It hit me then this pony was for her. She must have looked like her mother, because in those tiny green eyes, I couldn't see anything that resembled the man she was with.

"Deidara, come on, sell it to them, look at that girl. We got him for free, its a profit either way," I whispered, hoping he would give but he didn't, I continued persuading, "Come on, look at that little girl, just let them have him,"

The people were getting restless, we were holding up the action. Livestock and people alike were getting antsy. He took one last look around, sighed.

"Sold,"

It felt really good to see them, the girl squealed and jumped for joy. The father simply smiled, and picked up the son. We lead our horse out of the way, and Deidara exchanged the money for the reins. I smiled at her and asked her to take good care of him for me, and patted him one last time. I had that warm tingly feeling in my heart, and I smiled at Diedara. They lead him away, the father setting both of his children on the pony as they walked off.

"We did a good thing,"

"Yeah, well, That good thing could have gave us a little more," He paused and counted the money, "Oh well, lets go get some dinner."

I was all for that one, as I fallowed him down the narrow street to a bar. I could hear the chinking of glasses and drunken men inside, but Dei acted like he didn't much care. He started inside, but I stood still.

"Come on, remember what I said in the hotel room," he urged, and didn't look back, I huffed and unwillingly fallowed him. The bar was smoking and stank of stale booze and sweaty men, but Deidara didn't seem bothered. Then again he was a man. I fallowed him closely to the bar, where he sat down and I next to him. A pretty woman, with boobs the size of small melons showed up to take our orders.

"Do you guys serve Bakuden?" She nodded and took down the order, I had no idea what that was honestly, I wasn't sure if I wanted to.

"Uhh," I stuttered, and looked at him for help, he rolled his eyes and sighed,

"probably some noodles or something, I don't know, hmm" he told her, and she laughed a little. I blushed, a 17 year old girl couldn't order her own dinner.

"Anything to drink?" he asked, looking up and smiling at Deidara.

"Sake," he said, a large smile plastered on his face. The sake was here before the food, and Dei poured me a small glass. Literally a small glass, like a shot glass maybe. I brought it to my nose and sniffed it.

"Did you know this is alcohol?" I asked, setting it down and looking over at him.

"Yeah," he said, tipping his head back and drinking, "thats what Sake is, don't you have that in, 'south ohio'?" he asked, mocking my voice from the other night. I made a face, and looked from him to the glass.

"No," I said quietly, I felt a bit stupid. I saw the way he looked at her, she was way out of my league, She was really pretty and he made these eyes at her. Oh! That just pissed me off to no end! Wait a second, I was jealous of this girl. She had his attention and I didn't, and that irritated me. I didn't know I was capable of being jealous, never in my life before, but I guess when you hop worlds, you change huh?

Those three days in the woods had given me a lot to think about, and lots of time for those subjects and more. I decided, I'd hopped worlds, or detentions or something, there had to be a reason why I was here, not Jenny, not Todd, me, and I had to find out what that was. That was the only reasonable situation of events I could think of. This world was much different, no cars but they had lighters, televisions, house phones, but no cell phones, yet. I figured I was lucky I'd gone swimming in my cloths. I'd of woken up here in a bathing suit, but where had these shoes come from? More like sandals, and I realized when I found Deidara again, they matched his.

The food came as I was deep in thought, I found myself eating some sort of long noodles in a chicken stock broth, a boiled egg on the side there, and what was that there? I wasn't sure. I looked over at my companion, he was eating, what was that? I couldn't even remember what he called it.

"Uhh, Deidara," I asked, looking from him to my food again, "what uh," I was about to ask what to do with all of this, I wasn't proficient with chopsticks at home, and I had trouble even here, but he sooshed me, and he ate. I pouted for a bit, before deciding that I had to eat something. My stomach ached. I placed the chopsticks in between my fingers, and again I heard our server laugh. She came to us, bringing Deidara another bottle of sake, and moved my fingers. She saud nothing more, but it was a bit easier. The first couple times I dropped my noodles back into the bowl, splashing the thin broth out of the soup, and I sighed. Trying one more time, I only lost half of my noodles, actually making it to my mouth this time! I felt accomplished, and I went back for more, but by the time I finished, Diedara had long been done, and was continuing to drink. A slight blush came across his face, and I'd heard people talking about how warm it felt in you to drink, was that why he was blushing, or was it because of this woman?

"Just try it hmm, I promise it only burns a little," He said, pushing a cup to me, and I starred at the nearly clear liquid. I weighed my options, drink, or don't. I bet that girl could drink with the est o them, an agent my better judgment, I took it. Actually, it only did burn a little, though after I felt like my throat was sore. The blonde bomber smirked at me,

"That was your first drink?"

"You could tell?" I asked, unsure of how one person looked differently than the next when drinking.

"Yeah, your face un," I knew it. He laughed, a little harder than he would have if he hadn't previously been drinking. I had a little more, just enough to start feeling it, and then I quit. I was not only afraid to get drunk, but what would we do with both of our guards down? Somebody had to be in their right mind, and Deidara was already too far gone. I excused myself to the restroom, and when I returned, the waitress previously helping us was on his lap.

At first I was a bit taken back, just what the hell was she doing? What was he doing? It wasn't even her fault, I mean yes she was in on it, but he was accepting this affection! Hold on just a second, he wasn't my boyfriend, this was perfectly acceptable to him, but not me? Whats wrong here? Jesus this guy tried to kill me earlier and now I think I like him? What the hell?I made no body motions to indicate I was upset, and tried to calmly walk to him, and tell him we needed to go. I crossed the smoke filled space in seconds, and gave the woman a curt, but sort of bitchy smile.

"Uh, sweety I think its time to leave," I said to him, looking right past her to his face. She looked offended, sort of like a 'Back off, can't you see I'm trying to steal him?' in her eyes, but she stepped off, her heals hitting the floor with a click barely audible over the other bar goers. Deidara scowled.

"I'm not ready to leave," he wasn't exactly slurring, but a few of his words nearly ran together that time.

"Besides, you still have to pay," the waitress remarked, but at that point Deidara turned to her, and laughed in her face.

"Not to be rude, but that's how it works," She said, a hand on her hip and an annoyed look on her face.

"I ain't paying for shit you cheep trick," he said, his laughing died back down, "You can fucking shove that bill, Mei, wait outside," he commanded, and I opened my mouth to protest, "Outside, now," he growled. Taken back a bit, I obeyed. I didn't hear much from outside the doors, I couldn't see in the windows behind the drapes, and I wondered if he was going to kill her. If he killed her though, he'd have to kill everyone in the bar. Was that even possible judging by how quiet it was? Deidara emerged a few minutes later, laughing.

"Come on, we've got shit to do," he took my arm by the wrist, and guided me away from the bar once he'd calmed himself.

"What'd you do to her?" I asked, suddenly worrying for our safety. Were people coming after us?

"Told her I poisoned her drink, he was to busy worrying about herself she ran out to find a medic," he replied.

"Did you actually poison her?"

"Of course I did! She'll drop dead before she can even open her mouth to the medic, and our dinner was free!"

I wasn't really horrified that he'd killed her, I'd learned Deidara wasn't the person I thought he was this morning, but I was surprised he'd done it. He'd acted like he was having fun with her, and if anything I thought that he'd be trying to get rid of me. He scoffed and I looked over at him, stumbling down the main drag of this town back to out hotel. I wouldn't know it until later, but he'd gotten the poison from his past Akatsuki partner, Sasori, who used poison in most of his battles. Poison apparently didn't go bad, he'd had it all these years.

We arrived shortly, this town was so small if you blinked you might miss it, and the lights were already off inside. What time was it anyway? I wasn't feeling much of my buzz now, but Deidara was clearly still intoxicated.

"So, I'm here now, shes not in your way, what do you want?" He asked, pulling his shirt off by the back of the collar, and throwing it to the floor once we were back inside out hotel room, standing arms out like he was expecting a hug or something?

"What?" I asked, looking him over now. Sure, his chest was fine, but under his left shoulder is what attracted the most attention. I wasn't sure what those symbols meant, but in the middle, a line was sewn shut. It had to be another mouth, it looked like his on his hands when they closed.

"You know its rude to gawk," He noted, smirking confidently, "Don't act like you weren't insanely jealous of that girl hm, I could see it in your eyes,"

My eyes snapped to his face. I supposed to a ninja, it wasn't that hard to read emotion, even when trying to hide it.

"You wanna get on with it?"

"Get..get on with what?" I asked hesitantly, he just laughed, and came closer to me. I backed up, a bit afraid of the drunken man, I wasn't sure what he was going to do, but I had a pretty good idea. He crossed room, stopping when he was in front of me, almost nose to nose. I looked behind me, I was backed up agents the bed. As I looked forward again, he pushed me, and my back hit the plush surface.

He was on top of me then, he tilted my chin up, and our mouths meet. This wasn't my first kiss, but it was certainly the best I'd ever received. I could feel his mouth was open, and I parted my lips. Hesitantly, I moved my tongue to find his. I was blushing like mad, I was sure, and then I noticed his eyes were closed, and thought it'd be better if I closed mine too. The tip of my tongue touched his, and I jumped, pulling back, but he wouldn't allow it. Soon our tongues were dancing, feeling, just like his hands were doing now.

His chest ground against mine, I felt like he was squeezing the air from me, our breathes came in short gasps after he broke the kiss, my eyes opened, and he went instead to my neck. I wasn't sure how many times Deidara had been with a girl, but he was so much more skilled an any high school boy. Suddenly is hips were in on the action too, and I felt something I wasn't sure I wanted too. This was going too far. I put my hands on his hips and tried to push him off, however, he was much stronger than I was. It was like he couldn't even feel me resisting. He laughed against my neck, and moved to look me in the eyes.

"You got yourself into this, its too late now,"

"Please get off," I pleaded, and he leaned back down to continue on my neck, ignoring me completely. I wasn't sure how he was supporting himself, my face was buried in his hair and shoulder now, but I could feel a hand move to strip me of my shorts, leaving me only in my pink panties and shirt, my struggling actually aiding him, and I cursed myself as he removed his own. His hand raked across my thigh, over and over, moving further up each time.

I felt his hand stop moving suddenly, and then I realized he'd fallen asleep.

"Jesus," I cursed, pushing him off. It was easy now he wasn't using some sort of super human strength, "The fuck do you think this is?" He didn't respond, I didn't expect him too.

Huffing I got up and walked to the window. The moon was on the other side of the building now, and I could only see a small slice of the quiet town and the night sky. The sky here was so different, so many stars. I supposed if I went outside I could possibly see more, however, my limbs hurt from the flailing, and well, I honestly didn't want to leave the room, I didn't want to leave him.

I questioned myself what was wrong, he'd tried to rape and kill me all in the same day, and yet I wasn't running or calling the police? Of course he hadn't killed or raped me, and he'd saved my life. My legs burned to put my shorts back on and walk out the door, maybe even take his horse and just leave this town and him for good, but I couldn't bring myself too.

I heaved him up to the right side of the bed, he was pretty light for a guy, not that I noticed, I couldn't so much do a push up. I lay down next to him, and pulled the covers over us. The sun would come too soon the next morning.


	3. Chapter 3

Nine rolled around too soon the next morning, and my feet his the floor without a second thought. The fear of being left, no, killed, instilled in me wouldn't let me rest any longer. Was I really more afraid of him leaving me then him killing me? Deidara was up not long after I was, and after taking turns in the shower, we checked out of the hotel, much to my displeasure. He told me he'd been there too long, though I had only stayed a night, we had to get going. We checked out, and to my surprise he actually paid the man instead of us just running off like the last two places.

Our horse walked the dirt road. In this part of, wherever we were, it apparently hadn't rained in quite some time, so dust kicked up as soon as his foot left the ground. I held on to Deidara waist to keep myself from falling off of the horses butt, all in all it was pretty comfortable, just walking.

"Where too now?" I asked him, he had to have some sort of plan, there was no point to aimlessly wandering was there?

"Dunno," he replied. Apparently there was. It was apparent now he had no set plan.

"How would I go about, uh, I guess," I stuttered, looking for the right words, "How do I become, like you, I guess, I want to learn to do what you can do," He didn't say anything for about three or four strides of the horse.

"I'm afraid it might be to hard for you, there is so much that's just basic that you don't even have any idea about hm," but I was persistent.

"I can learn it! Just teach me!" that earned a sigh from him.

"Alright, so, I told you about chakra the other night, you remember all that? Well you've got to learn to channel it. Kids spend years in training to even learn to be the lowest level of shinobi, it take a whole lot of focus," I could see over his shoulder that he moved the reins to one hand, and the other to his pouch of clay on his hip. With no cloak, there was no shifting, he just moved. He made me another bird and handed it back to me, promising not to detonate it in my hands.

"I used my chakra to forum that bird. My chakra is in the clay. I'm gonna teach you something really simple, make this sign," he said, putting the reins down to demonstrate, "I want you to channel your Chakra to the bird and take control of it from me,"

It sounded simple enough, but when I asked how, he told me to figure it out. I held the bird in my hand, thinking, before I finally tried to do something with it. I closed my eyes and tried to become aware of this force. Chakra huh? I could do this. I could do this! I could feel something bubbling, Now get a hold of it! The more I tried, the less I found working, and suddenly, suddenly very tired, I lost it all together.

"Couldn't do it?" Deidara asked, feeling me slump against him.

"No," I sighed, "I'll try again later,"

We reached the next town within a days ride, our horse's four legs loved so much faster than ours, and I was impressed. This town was quite a bit bigger than the last, some trees decorated each corner, nice houses instead of apartment buildings on these streets. We reached the town square, a small market currently set up, but we weren't worried about spices and fish, more of a place to stay.

The first few inns we tried were too expensive for my partner, and on the edge of town, we finally found one to suit his taste. It looked more like a heap of old, used wood fashioned into a two story house to me, no shingles or siding, but they had an open room with a two person bed, and Deidara took it. There was no place for our horse, so Deidara tied it to a post on the inns back porch, and got it a bucket of water. He was convinced it would be fine, but me, not so much. I found a rope laying around, and tied it around our horses neck, and took off the saddle and the bridle, and walked him around to eat some grass.

I mused on a name for this guy, what was a horse with no name? He was big, and brown, with black legs, mane and tail, and ate sort of daintily.

"Travis," I said, patting his down facing neck.

"No," I twisted around, surprised, I thought I was the only one here, Deidara was up in our room. I in fact was the only one out here, I passed it off. Sometimes I thought I heard people call my name too, but, there was never anyone there.

"Well Travis, I hope your having fun," I sat down on the grass next to him, my feet tired. Travis rose his head, looking at me with his right eye, and neighed. No other horses answered, and I just watched him. Was something going on here I couldn't see?

"Whats the matter?" I asked him, not expecting a response, however,

"th..rope..too..tight!" he choked, if eye could be as big as dinner plates, mine would have been. He neighed again, and I jumped to my feet. Was I going crazy? However, I stepped toward the horse, and loosed the rope. He took a couple deep breathes, and snorted. Wasn't he just speaking moments ago? Why back to horse noises? Maybe I had already gone crazy. This horse was certainly not talking to me.

"I said thank you!" there it was again, and I went ridged.

"You uh..your welcome,"

Oh now what the hell was I doing, talking to a god damned horse.

"My name is Jiro, not Travis by the way,"

"Oh..uh, okay," I nodded, as he went back to grazing. Though mouth fulls of grass, he spoke to me.

"You know, I've never meet another person who could understand me, you a sage or somethin'?" He asked, talking with his mouth full.

"Uh, no, no I'm not,"

Then it hit me. I'd channeled my chakra to him, not the clay bird. The more I focused on his speech, the clearer it was, the more I understood. I wasn't crazy! Just..not proficient at controlling energy! His neighs were sentences lost in translation. Now had it gone to him or my ears? I didn't know, but I was talking to a god damned horse and this was pretty cool!

"What the hell are you doing un?" I turned to see Deidara behind me.

"Talking! You know how I thought I failed with channeling my chakra before while we were riding? Well I didn't! I'm talking with him!" I was so excited to share, I bounced up and down, my blonde friend wasn't impressed.

"Yeah, I bet you are, you know most people can't do that," His tone sounded a bit fake and unimpressed, "Come on, you can 'talk' with him later, lets go get something to eat,"

"You don't believe me?" I asked, crushing my joy.

"No, now go tie him up, lets get going, I'm gonna starve here,"

I shot him a look and tied Jiro on a long tine, telling him not to break the rope, and that I was trusting him. He agreed and Deidara and I left. I spent the walk to the restaurant attempting to convince the bomber that I really had spoken to the horse, and he explained how limited that ability was again, but I refused to give up, at least, until food was put in front of me.

I wasn't entirely sure what kind of soup Deidara had ordered for us, but I think those things there in it might have been some sort of fish at one point. I poked at it a bit before picking up some of the noodles with my new found chopstick skills, and ate. It was a quiet dinner, there weren't many people here, and I wondered why, out loud none the less.

"Festival I heard, most everyone is out on some hill just outside of town watching the stars," Dei responded. He looked up at me, to watch my reaction I assume.

"Lets go," I said between mouth fulls.

"Sure,"

"Deidara, please? Come on, its not even a big deal lets just go! oh..wait, okay," I laughed, and he smiled. We finished our meal, and instead of returning to the inn, we walked outside of town to the festival. The sun had set while we were inside the restaurant, and with my head turned up to the sky, I thought, so many more stars would be outside rather than observing inside, and I was right.

"I've never seen so many stars. Where I come from, there are so many lights that..You can't see even half of these," I remarked, not taking my eyes away from the twinkling heavens.

"That must be pretty terrible, I couldn't imagine being without the stars. They're a lot like my clay, they change from night to day, and sometimes they even burn out, sometimes, its like your not even looking at the same sky, one day we won't be, damn not to mention, they're beautiful hm,"

I nodded and we reached the festival grounds a few minutes later. It was pretty simple, a few booths selling items and snacks. Over the field of hills, it didn't look crowed though over one hundred people were probably here. A few banners were up, and I looked them over tiring to decipher what they meant before finally asking.

"Uh, novelties," Deidara read, just glancing at the letters. I looked over the booth, Dei standing a few feet away, watching people. The booth had mostly junk, some kids toys, old cloths, cheep jewelry. Though at the end of the table, something caught my eye. On top of a pink blouse, sat a scroll. It was a different kind of scroll, instead of just a solid center, this had ornate wood ends, a deers head carved out on the very top. By the looks of it, at one point it had antlers, though they were either worn or broken off.

"Hey uh," I was about to say Deidara when I stopped myself, "Sweety, come have a look at this, what is it?"

Sighing my 'sweety' looked over, and I handed it to him.

"Some kind of old summoning scroll, like, I guess for deer? How useless, deer," he remarked, and handed it back to me. I looked to the man running the booth who simply said to have it. I thanked him and fallowed Dei as he began to walk away, and we seated ourselves on a hill. I was the first to lay back, the cold, and slightly dewy grass felt refreshing. The sky never seemed to get old to me.

"So, your not going back to where ever you came from then?" Deidara asked, of all time, he was going to bother me with that nonsense during a time like this?

"Wasn't planning on it, no. At least not right away, I don't even know how to get back," I reminded him, but he wasn't listening to listen, he was listening to reply.

"So, your just gonna wander around with me until you figure something out or die?"

"That's what I'm telling you, yes," I sighed, closing my eyes.

"That's a pretty shitty plan yeah," he laughed, and I smirked, not really finding it that funny. I opened my eyes to find the moon, and when my eyes landed on it, my pupils dilated with its brightness. The moon was huge, it felt like it was so close I could reach out and touch it.

"Everything here feel so, I guess, surreal, its like its all in high definition, like I'm seeing everything for the first time again. I'll tell you something, back home, I have an awesome life. I've got a dog, and my parents are still together, I've got some great friends, but you know, I've got the shittiest attitude. Everything just makes me sad back home, and all I can do is hate myself. Its almost like," I paused to think, "I was born in the wrong place, you know? Like I was meant to be here. I feel so, I guess relieved and light,"

Deidara was listening to me, I think, but I couldn't expect him to understand.

"That's sort of how I feel about my art," He said in a very simplistic tone, as if he didn't know how else to respond.

"You know theirs going to be some sort of repercussion right? I've seen enough movies to know I can't just go off without a hitch,"

"Probably," He said, using the same tone, "But I don't want to talk about that anymore,"

He lay down next to me, and we quietly observed the night sky. I figured in the spring the would be cherry blossom viewing, and the snow here would probably be just as beautiful, as well as the leaves in coming fall.

Judging by the moon, It was around one when the people began to clear out. We went with them, our backs a bit damp, but it was worth it. The walk to the inn was longer with tired eyes, and without much of a second thought, we turned in when we reached the room.

I wished so hard the next morning for breakfast in bed, however that didn't happen. Deidara was still asleep beside me, and a bit disgusted with my only set of cloths, I opted to wash them in the sink, and let them dry while I was in the shower out the lovely window in the bathroom. I left the room to wash, as the bathroom was not attached.

I was enjoying myself when there was a loud rasping at the door,

"Mei?"

"What Dei?" I asked, I couldn't get anywhere or do anything without him on top of me, but then, the same went for me on him. I didn't hear anything after that, and I surmised he was worried I was going to leave him just as much as I worried he would leave me, though I knew he was only concerned about me turning him in. I was out soon enough, but my cloth hadn't fried, so I was left In only a towel, waiting. I could smell food downs stairs, and I wondered if my pretend boyfriend would bring me up some. That act had gone well in the last few towns, we were believed and left alone. It hadn't taken any planning, just cooperation on both our parts. I must say, we did make an awesome team.

By the time the food smell had gone away, my cloths were dry, and I went downstairs, only to find my partner eating a bowl of..something, at the table.

"What exactly is that?" I asked, leaning over his shoulder,

"Breakfast," He said, taking his chopsticks and putting it up to my mouth. I could see it was some sort of rice, and I wondered he he'd done that without getting it all over. I shrugged and took the bite, chewing. Whatever sauce was in it was gross and..what exactly was that chunk? Food here was so different, I mean, the taste varied so different than my own, but, it occurred to me then, couldn't I just request something American? I asked the owner, a woman, about this, and within ten minutes, I had a plate of eggs and toast. We ate in silence.

Deidara thought maybe we could spend a maximum of three days here, and I demanded that he teach me more about being a ninja. He agreed, surprisingly without much complaining.

We stopped at a clothing store first thing, I needed cloths, and a more ninja-ish attire. Simple black pants that could easily be rolled up or down, and an underarmor feeling, about mid arm length shirt. We kept my sandals, but bandaged my heals to prevent blisters. I tied my long dark hair up in a bun of sorts, Dei gave me a 'senbon' needle to stick though it, just in case. It was fine, I mean, plain. Deidara's wasn't quite so plain, but, I mean it wasn't really to fashion- esque either.

He kept his outfit he'd been wearing when I meet him, His shirt had no sleeves, and was a little long for him, his pants looked much like mine, only gray instead of black. I noticed his arms now, both looked to have been sewn back on at some point, the middle section on his left looked aged, but I remembered not to stare and did not ask him how those injures occurred. It was warm out, summer, and we had no reason for any sort of coat.

Dei lead the way into the woods, and it occurred to me that out here, he could do whatever he wanted, and no one could hear, but I pushed those thoughts from my mind.

"Alright, so, were gonna start again today with chakra control un, Your gonna climb that tree, " he pointed to a mature tree in front of me, "Without using your hands or any aids,"

I looked up at the mighty oak with contempt.

"where do I stop?" I asked, counting the amount of steps it would take until I could make it to the first branch.

"At the top," He said, sitting down and taking a sip of water from a bottle he'd brought. Why hadn't I also done that? My mouth fell open and I looked at him as to ask if he was serious.

"What happens if I fall?" I asked, surely I would die.

"You get up and try again, if your hurt I'm not helping," he said very matter of factly, and dug his hand into his pocket, no doubt going for clay. I put my foot against the tree, focusing my self to the tree. Foot, tree, foot tree, I repeated over and over to myself, there was no way I was about to fall.

"You gonna move or what?" My partner called, and I sighed, now or never!

I lifted my opposite foot from the ground, and waited for the fall, I waited to just fall flat on my back and thought to my self how stupid this was I was doing this. But I never fell, I never felt my back hit the ground and my other foot touched the tree. Oh shit I did it! Then I felt myself slip, and calmed myself, this was not a time to get excited! I was quick to keep moving, standing would only get me nowhere. I was near the first branch, maybe ten feet up when I felt myself starting to drain, my feet gave out from under me, and I scrambled to get a hold of something. The branch was just out of my reach, and as I reached for it, I realized the bark of this tree would be my only help. I clawed like a overweight cat, trying to keep myself from falling.

"Deidara!" I screeched,

"Chakra to your hands!" he responded, and I tried I really did, but I fell anyway. I braced myself to hit the ground and closed my eyes, but I never did. When I reopened my eyes and took a look around, I realized I was on top of the first branch I had previously been going for. My companion had caught me, and now we sat astride this branch like a horse.

"That was pretty good for your first try hm, I've got to admit," He said, a small smile on his face.

"Yeah, thanks..and uh, thanks for catching me," I said, and blushed. I'd never really seriously been praised for skill before, sure empty compliments from a middle school art teacher, but this was entirely different.

"So uh, next I was thinking I could teach you to use clay, I mean, I'd have to forum it but, I bet you could learn to detonate it," He placed a small snake on the wood between us, and moved my hands into the correct sign. "When you've think you've got control, throw it and detonate," he said, and let me work. I picked up the tiny white serpent, and held it in my hands, and tried to channel like I'd done the other day, except, instead of under me, to my hands. The tree exercise had really helped, at least, I thought so, until Deidara threw the snake and I was unable to make it explode.

"We'll try again tomorrow yeah, no biggie," He said, and lifted me up to jump from the tree. Upon hitting the ground, and him setting me on my feet, I produced the deer scroll from the surprisingly deep pocket of my new pants.

"Could you teach me how to do this?" I asked, handing it to him, his left arm still wrapped around me.

"I told you deer are useless," He answered, I took that as a very strong, 'No, I don't know how,' and left it alone. We camped out in the clearing for lunch, before heading back to town. Once back in the room, I looked over the scroll but couldn't understand any of it. Not being able to read was a pretty big inconvenience. I insisted we go to a library after Dei was done resting. I had him read me the first book on summoning I found, and now I understood.

The next morning in the training spot, I had him poke my thumbs with a knife, and swirling around the blood over my entire print, I placed them down on the unscrolled paper and fallowing that, signed my name. I didn't know how else to sign it, so I simply singed my initials, M.T, in English lettering. Next I began guessing hand signs. I hadn't memorized them, and it took quite a lot of help from Deidara. He forcibly moved my hands and fingers to the right positions, and though it hadn't worked the first three times, finally a common combination worked.

By the shear force if the appearance of the animal, I was thrown back into Deidara, knocking us both back on top of each other a few feet away from the scroll. He shoved me off as the smoke cleared, as I had landed between his legs as he now sat up. I mocked him, looking off into the clearing space.

Standing in front of us was a sleek young buck, He only had four points on his antlers, two on each side. The left side of his display looked normal, the right side was all drop tines, meaning the prongs were on the underside of the horn. His tan coat contrasted agents his black points, swirls located on his upper flanks, and down all four of his legs. The young male snorted, blowing a bit of left over smoke from his nostrils.

"Which of you two summoned me?" He demanded, pawing at the paper under his hooves. I looked at Deidara, a bit afraid to answer. The blonde looked at me, narrowing his eyes. He wasn't for or against me learning to summon, however he still thought a deer would be useless.

"uh, I..I did," I said, standing up. The buck simply scoffed at me.

"Someone like you? Impossible," he said, turning his snooty nose to the sky. It was Deidara turn to scoff next, as he stood also.

"Its not like it took a whole not of chakra un, probably less than it takes to create an explosion," I looked from the deer to my partner. Less? Really? Or was he just saying that? My hands felt a bit sore actually, but then again, I was just learning. The deer was angry.

"That is NOT what I meant, so many of you imbeciles think you can just summon us to do your bidding? We are not pack animals! We are great and majestic, and we deserve to be treated as equals!" This deer was off on a tangent, and I honestly I sort of wished I'd never picked up that scroll.

"Would you just shut yor mouth for ten second or do I have to blow it off?" Deidara, clearly angry, shouted, crossing the clearing to take the animal by his jaw. His spike horns were far away from Dei's face as he forced the pompous animal to look him in the eyes.

"That's what a summons in, people summon you to fight, to do work, stop acting like an asshole yeah," he said, shoving the animals head to one side and stomped off. I'd never seen him so easily pissed off, but then again, I'd only meet him, what, a week ago?

"You there," the deer turned to me, clearly ignoring Deidara's temper tantrum, "I am Akimitsu, What is your purpose here?" I shrugged, and he looked a little irritated.

"Then tell me my purpose," I again shrugged but responded,

"Lets get going," and trotted off after Deidara after picking up the scroll. He was headed back to town, I fallowed, Akimitsu on my heals.

"So, Akimitsu is kinda a mouthful, How about I call you Aki? Yeah, okay," I more told him then suggested to him, he didn't answer me. We caught up with Deidara who never left my sight, and I continued talking to him not even giving him a chance to interject.

"So uh, I might have to summon you a lot, seeing as I'm new at this ninja stuff, what kind of stuff can you do?" The deer sauntered with us for a few steps before he answered.

"I'm probably not the strongest there is, I might not be a good choice for a battle if that's what your intending me for."

I thought for a moment, Deidara still hadn't said anything. I was actually hoping for more information from the usually talkative guy, but then u remembered he'd only known what we'd gotten from that book.

"So, Your not like, a ninja," I asked, looking back at him from my place in the middle of the group. The deer shook his head.

"I'm in training," he responded.

"So if had been an emergency when I summoned you, what would you have done?" I asked in sort of a snarky tone, very unimpressed. I'd signed a blood oath for this?

"Listen, I just said I'm in training...You would have probably had to summon someone else, but I warn you now there aren't many of us left..We've sort of gotten dumb over the last few decades.."

"You were right, deer are pretty useless," I laughed, but Deidara apparently hadn't found it funny, though I bet he'd be smirking if I could see his face. I waved Aki off, the deer disappearing in the same style of smoke as when he'd appeared.

"I told you, waste of time," Deidara remarked as soon as he was gone, his tone sounded a bit angry. I shrugged it off. It was true, he had. I though I had admitted that back in the woods?

"You got a stick up your ass?" I already said that, I figured he was just pissed an animal had mouthed off to him, "At least I can summon something, I mean, maybe he could help us run if we were in trouble?" Deidara scoffed.

"I doubt hes any good to anyone," he said, and I took a couple of large steps to walk even with him instead of behind him.

"Listen," I started in on him much like Aki had, my tone wasn't nearly as harsh though, "It was lesson, I have so much more to learn! Its just beginner stuff right?"

"Don't just pass shit off, Don't you understand that wasting time is terrible for us? Every moment, something could just give us away and then they'll pursue us until we die, and I'm not just going to give up, I'm going to fight until my last breathe, and I expect you would do the same un. This isn't play time, this is get your shit together in a hurry time." He was turned facing me now, a deep scowl on his face.

"Jesus what is it with you?" I asked, returning the look of distaste.

"You don't have a lot of chakra to waste, and whatever that was back their was a waste!" he shot back.

"How would you even know?" I asked, my hand on my right hip now.

"I'm a fucking ninja! I have tools to tell me this shit! Look, You have about a third of what a normal person has, like I said, not a lot to waste!" I was a bit taken back by that last remark, and he stomped off. He defiantly had sat on a stick when we fell. Judging by the way he called my inability to control his clay, 'no biggie' yesterday ,but suddenly something that was a success was unacceptable? I fallowed him though, I couldn't find my way back any other way.

I'd have to watch myself tonight. I didn't want to set him off again, or worse, on another attempt ageists my life. Though, he had helped me so much the past two days, and I understood where he was coming from. Though, what I didn't know what happened when you ran out of chakra.

If I didn't have much to even use, did that have something to do with me coming here instead of being born here? Probably. All that meant was I had to work even harder.

* * *

So, here I am, trying to embark on making a complex and intelligent character, that doesn't play on everything from every other fic on every other sight. She doesn't need people to tell her things, she can assume and get it right on her own, and I think that's a necessary characteristic for an intelligent character. Someone like her, to keep up with a guy like him, should be fairly intelligent. I tried to match that with her back story, unhappy, because they say often the most intelligent people are unhappy.

I tried to play on some things that are clearly a necessity for two mature people, like not arguing over a girl and boy sleeping in the same bed, him agreeing to teach her ,because she'd literally be useless any other way, (though she already is pretty useless to him, ohh, why's that do you think?) and I tried to keep Deidara sort of emotionless and level headed, something an S ranked criminal would have to do while on an extended run, still keeping his original personality, a bit hot headed, impatient and talkative, a just a tad bit crazy, though I haven't gotten to the crazy yet.

Tell me how I'm doing?


	4. Chapter 4

I took what Deidara said to heart as we walked the way back. I stayed behind him now, sort of afraid to get within arms distance of him, not that it mattered because his striking distance was much farther, if he even needed to hit me, he could probably just drop a bomb on the ground and blow me to kingdom come before I even knew he'd done it.

I was still stuck on the fact he could kill me and I wouldn't know until the second before it happened. I wondered if he would ever test me now that I was in training, knowing him, he probably wouldn't feel bad if he did kill me, but what had that been back in the forest? He said he wouldn't help me if I fell but what did he do? Helped me when I fell. A strange voice snapped me quickly out of my thoughts, and I looked around.

"Cease and desist!" the mans voice called, from where I didn't know.

"Mei get back!" Suddenly I was being tackled, Deidara was on top of me, pushing me into the ground, about ten feet away from where'd I'd been as an explosion went off in the background.

"What the hell are you doing?" I yelled suddenly as he jumped up and crouched down, arms in an x in front of his chest.

"Its not me! Its a paper bomb!" he said, eyes searching. I got up too, afraid of getting hit again, if this wasn't Deidara, who was it?

"Whats going on?" I demanded,

"Just shut up and watch out," he commanded, as a knife came flying from the shadows, narrowly missing my neck, just enough to nick my skin and let a small trickle of blood flow. I nearly screamed, but regained myself before I cold open my mouth. No time to panic now! I needed to fight now, this is what I'd been preparing for, even if it was just a little. Again a knife came and I prepared to move, but I was to slow. This time I did scream as it stuck about half way in my arm. I slapped my hand over the area, only cutting my fingers, Jesus what was I doing?

"God damn it un," Deidara growled, and his palms puked up a massive amount of very stringy clay, the watery looking substance forming into two large, but very shaky people like objects.

"You haven't hesitated hitting her, so I wont hesitate hitting you! Deidara warned, he looked back at me for a moment, probably assessing damage, but then turned to our attacker. He was in front of us now, very tall, with short, spiky brown hair, and a black vest with all sorts of wepons strapped to it.

"You know, they took you out of the bingo book, but I never believed you were dead," he smirked, "but how stupid was it really to get her involved too? Come quietly so I can collect your bounty and I'll let her go," this man smirked, looking very confident in himself.

All I could think about was how badly my arm hurt. It was gushing blood now, soaking the little bit of sleeve that was around the wound, my arm now mostly red, slowly it dripped down my fingers and to the ground where it as starting to gather. My lip trembled in fear, oh shit oh shit, what are we gonna do?

Deidara laughed darkly, the figures he created slowly receded into his palms, where they both spat out a small ball of white clay.

"Your not even a shinobi! You think a some weapons and maybe a couple beginner jutsu are going to help you ageist my art? Fat chance!"

If only I could see his eyes as I watched him take the clay into one hand, and into the mouths. The man was clearly offended as he now charged at us, a knife in hand.

"Distract him!" Deidara shouted, jumping out of the way as the man now came at me. I couldn't see where he'd gone with my tunnel vision, but apparently I'd grabbed the knife from my arm and used it to defend myself, as when I regained memory of the event, the knife was nowhere to be found. I was lucky he hadn't hit my right arm, because then I would have really been screwed. By chance our knifes hit, creating a loud 'chink'ing sound and knocking me back. I was barely able to brace myself. The bounty hunter was so much larger and stronger than I. He pulled away and slashed, I had barey enough time to move, he would have hit my face if I hadn't awkwardly leaned back, letting him cut the bridge of my nose instead of my eyes.

I just wasn't fast enough though, he punched me in the stomach, and I doubled over. This guy wasn't a ninja huh? He sure hit pretty hard.

"Mei!" I heard a familiar voice yell, but I couldn't respond. He was about to hit me again, I could barely see him, but I never felt it, I head another explosion off a ways away/

"Mei get on, hurry up!" I soughed and looked up, beginning to regain myself just a little. Deidara was in front of me, sitting on the back of a large, what I assumed to be clay, bird.

"God damn it, I don't have time for you, we're getting out of here!" He was speaking to me, and I could hear him, bit I couldn't move. I couldn't respond. He made a face at me, and in a second the bird was gone.

"Boyfriend leaving you huh?" I was sure the bounty hunter was nearing me again. I was crippled, hurt, I wanted him to just finish me off, my arm hurt like nothing I'd ever felt, until I was hit with a blast. I screamed again, inhaling smoke before my voice rushed out of me. I could feel the skin on my arms burn, my hair singed, but I could also feel a hand around my wrist. Deidara roughly threw my down on the back of the bird, I could hear several smaller explosions as I stared up at the sky. He never asked if I was okay, and he never offered to land to bandage my cuts.

"What was that?" I wheezed, my lungs couldn't catch a break.

"I told you it wasn't safe with me," he answered, when he'd said that I didn't think he really meant it.

"You said you've had this going for years..I didn't think that," he cut me off.

"That people were going to try to kill you? Of course, I wouldn't lie yeah." That made me a little angry.

"You threw me in front of him like a peace of meat!" I spat, sitting up and breathing deeply.

"I did what I had to!" he responded.

"I almost died!"

"Wasn't it great?" He was insane. That was all there was to it. He'd just jeopardized our position, that blast could probably be seen for miles! That's overkill for just one guy! Even if he was tough. Wait a second, was I really worried about that stuff over my own self?

"What do you mean its 'great? Just what the hell are you," He cut me off again.

"That was true art!" he said, turning to me now. The look on his face wasn't exactly crazed, but certainly disturbed, "His death, now that was a work! The destruction, so well executed and the blast zone is huge! Not to mention the seismic wave it probably created!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" I shouted, my eyes narrowing. Something in him snapped, and suddenly he was making sense again.

"You need to get some pressure on that so it'll stop bleeding. I need to fly the bird, work on yourself," he said, and turned around, suddenly the only sound was the wind. I judged that we were probably traveling miles in just a few minutes. I used what was left of my chakra to hold on to the bird, as I took my shoe off and used the bandages around my ankle to wrap my arm. It was deep, I guess, I'd never had a wound like this before, but it wasn't to the bone or anything. Slowly but tightly, I wrapped it, gushing blood just above my elbow joint, but as I made several passes over the area until the blood stopped staining though the bandage and I figured it was good enough. How he'd managed to go unscathed was beyond me.

"Is there going to be a doctor in the next town?" I asked, realizing we were not going back to the town we'd just come from, the terrain quickly changing. Once vast forests with winding paths covered the land became field and rice paddies, long straight roads in between.

"Probably not, but it'll be fine, I can help once we land, "he assured me, giving me a quick and quiet answer. Though everything seemed quiet over the wind.

"where are we going?" I questioned

"I'll tell you when we get there," he said, sort of short, so I left it alone. I took to nursing my other wounds for the rest of the ride.

It was nightfall by the time the bird landed. We were damp, having been fling in the clouds for some part of the journey. Deidara called the bird back to his palms, and out away the surprisingly small ball of clay it had spat out. We'd left most of our things in the hotel room, however Deidara still had a scroll or two in his pants pocket, letting us at least have sleeping bags and a lighter for a fire. He lay both the bags out next to each other as I held my arm, and broke up some sticks and started a small fire.

"Where are we?" I questioned, not that it mattered, I had no idea where anything was anyway.

"Border of Earth country," he responded, motioning for me to sit down. I cooperated.

"Where did we used to be?" I asked as he started undoing my bandages. I hissed in pain as the night air hit the exposed and dirty scab that formed. It looked gross, terribly gross.

"Fire country, look your going to need stitches, and I don't have any pain killers," he said ,producing a needle and thread from the scroll.

"you..you can't, it'll hurt to much," I said, staring intently at the needle. I've always hated needles.

"I have to or it won't heal and stay an open and infected wound until it gets gang green," I wasn't sure how much of what he'd just told me was true, or if any of it, but ageist my better judgment, I offered him my arm.

"Distract me, please," I begged as I covered my watering eyes with my good hand. I whimpered like a baby as I felt it stick. Jesus it stung!

"You did really well, you know, he moved kinda slow for a bounty hunter, but you bought me enough time to get us out of there. I uh, I'm actually surprised he didn't kill you, but I mean, that was all you," It felt sort of good to hear him praise me. I hiccuped and cried out as he stitched my arm, but I never broke down actually crying. I wouldn't let myself.

"Thank I uh.." I started, smiling weekly," I learned from the best,"

He laughed and patted my shoulder as he finished, breaking the line and knotting it off.

"You can open you eyes now,"

I did, and looked down at my arm, black thread accented the angry red line, probably already infected. I wasn't sure what he was planning to do about that just yet, but he sat back for a moment.

"So, you must have done those yourself then," I motioned to his own stitches. Come to think of it, was one arm darker than the other?

"Uh, no. Someone in the Akatsuki did them for me yeah. This one was crushed, but he other sorta got ripped off," he traced the lines on his left, his eyes down, but when he looked up he flashed me a genuine smile. He was lonely, and that was all. That was my entire reason to be here. He tried to act like he didn't need me, I realized, but he wanted me around. Even if he had threw me under the bus, he'd also saved me, twice. Returning his smile, I leaning over and give him a hug. The first affectionate contact I'd made with him. After a moment, he returned it, as if he didn't exactly know what to do.

"Thank you," I said, even know the actually of this relationship was all kinds of fucked up, I had a spot in my heart for the blonde.

"Your pretty tough for a girl," he laughed, and leaned back until his back touched the ground. My arms still wrapped around his neck, his still around my midsection. I blushed, and hid my face in his chest. Christ was I falling in love? He'd tried to kill me! That didn't matter now, and I too lay on my back, having rolled over, one of my arms still under his neck, the one without the stitches, one of his still around me.

"Are we safe now?" I asked, I was sort of afraid to fall asleep.

"Yeah, for now, I don't think he was much of a threat anyway, probably no subordinates, plus I'm sure we're not on any ones radars," he replied, we didn't even look at each other, just up at the sky. I felt safe now, safe with him. My eyes closed, and suddenly it was a big deal to me that we were sleeping next to each other, this close even. though we'd shared an inn bed since I'd gotten here.

"Dei," I yawned,

"Yeah?" he voice much quieter now. People had been calling him my boyfriend, and I'd even played along with an unspoken 'traveling sweethearts' plan, but what did that mean really? Had I already been thinking about him as a significant other?

"Thanks," I repeated, unsure of why I had even started.

"Welcome,"

I hadn't remembered falling asleep, but when I woke the next morning, not only was I covered in dew, but I was cold. I wasn't exactly dressed for this sort of chill, and I realized that it was beginning to transition to fall. What had I done with my summer? Sure I'd spent this long with Deidara, but what about in my own world?

I cuddled up closer to Dei, at least he was warm. It became evident that he was awake then, and he sat up. I stayed laying. Shoot! I had got gotten comfortable again! I moved my arm, only to meet a stinging pain, and I brought it to my line of vision only to find a swollen, red patch of flesh around the ever worsening wound.

"That looks pretty bad," Deidara said, stretching his arms and twisting to crack his back. Sleeping on the ground, I found, made you not only cold but stiff.

"What should we do? It hurts," I said, sitting up next to him, and putting my hand on his knee. He looked down from the contact, up my arm and to my face, his expression almost confused, but it quickly went away to his calm default.

"Can you summon a deer to go get us some medicine? I bet if you tried you could do it with your good arm," he stood then, and looked around, "Figure it out, and I'll get some firewood and maybe something to eat," and then he was gone. Damn he was fast!

I turned my hands over, looking at my palms, a dull ache in my arm, and a sour look on my face. I remembered the hand signs, praising myself for being so observant, and there was Aki, in all his pompous glory. I hadn't bothered to try it with one hand, my arm might be hurt but it wasn't useless, yet.

"What happened to you?" He scoffed. What an asshole. He'd just gotten here and I was sick of him. Did I really look that rough for him to be asking?

"I slept on the ground after being stabbed," I shot back, a very matter of factly tone. Deer couldn't really make faces, they didn't really have expressions, so when he didn't respond I didn't take offense. I'm sure if he was a person he might look concerned.

"What is my task, might I ask?" He dipped his head down to look me in the face instead of towering over me, as I was still sitting. He turned his head slightly, as deer have eyes on the sides of their head no the front.

"I need some sort of medicine, My arm really hurts, I mean really hurts," I reached out my good arm and pet his face. He looked like he might be sort of course feeling, though when my fingers made contact, I found he was actually very soft.

"I could probably try to make you some medicine," I rolled my eyes. Sure Mr. 'I'm in training' was going to make me medicine!

"I'm serious, I can make you medicine, do you know of any honey or ginger?"

We aren't making tea, Aki," I said narrowing my eyes.

"Its for your wound stupid!" Sighing I put my head in my hands.

"Does it look like theirs any honey or ginger around here? Would you please just find a town and beg for some medicine? Steal it if you have to," I probably sounded like Deidara. The young buck sighed, and stalked off into the forest. Not long after he disappeared from my sight did Deidara appear, with an arm full of fire wood none the less! He used a small bomb to start the fire, and settled down net to me.

"There isn't much to eat out here, Now I remember why I hated mission in rock country. These forests are so..secluded, we're just surrounded by huge wastelands of rock!" He sounded frustrated. Now we are down to just a few items, and I was convinced living with the few items we had before was hard enough. And I thought it was hard before!

Pushing the dull ache of my arm out of my mind, I replied,

"What else is there to do? Aki probably wont be back for awhile, so,"

"Not a whole lot we can do, I don't want to move just yet," Suddenly I didn't want to move either. My body felt sort of heavy, tired, "Why don't you just sit back, I'll try again in another direction for food,"

It was all to easy to agree, and I lay back on the sleeping bags and let myself drift off.


	5. Chapter 5

Deidara shook me awake after I don't know how long of peaceful sleep. The sun was still up, so I couldn't figure I'd been asleep very long. I sat up, still a bit groggy. I looked at the sun, squinting, judging by the position, it looked to be around three, maybe four in the afternoon. Had I really fallen asleep in the middle of the day?

"The deer is back un," He said, and threw a package into my lap. I picked it up, and read 'vet wrap,' out loud. Sure it stated it was sterile, but it was also vet wrap, for animals.

"Whats this?" I asked, looking up at my cervine friend.

"Look, I went to all the places I could think to get medicine, do you know how many places I got kicked out of?" He was starting on another argumentative tangent, but I held my good hand up to silence him.

"A simple, I couldn't get them, would be alright," I quietly said, as Deidara knelt down to look at my currently undressed wound. Had I taken the bandages off or had he? I couldn't remember. He traced a finger over it lightly, I twitched, it stung as the tip of his finger made contact.

"Probably should wash it out first," he then produced a water bottle, probably left over from our training session before the attack, almost empty, from his pocket and proceed to pour it over my wound. The skin around it tingled and I hissed, but I didn't pull away. The water dripped down on to the sleeping bags, I watched it pool as Deidara picked up the vet wrap, opened the package, and wrapped the bright white around my arm before ripping it with his teeth, and sticking the loose end to rest of the bandaging. It was sort of a sticky material, and stuck to itself well.

I looked up at him then, and we made eye contact. He gave me a half smile and assured me my arm would be alright. Something was different now, I couldn't place exactly what it was.

"Um, thanks for uh, taking care of me," I smiled back at him, I could feel a small blush rising to my cheeks.

"Your welcome," his voice was lower now, though his tone was still sort of cheerful. I glanced down from those beautiful blue eye eyes to his lips, and back up. I wanted him to kiss me. I moved my hand to his knee and shifted my body around to face him. I smiled at him, and leaned froward a little. If he couldn't take the hint I don't know what else I could do.

His lips parted a bit, and a look of surprise crossed his face as he suddenly realized what happened, but he didn't pull away. He leaned in too, I closed my eyes, and his lips were on mine. My heart fluttered and in inhaled sharply. This feeling of warmth washed over me, I felt it even in my finger tips, maybe those were his finger tips. Everything felt melted, slow, and light, all because of a simple kiss. I pulled back and fluttered my eyes, trying to pull myself back together. Those were indeed his fingertips, now laced together with mine.

"What the fuck are we doing," he breathed, I couldn't look him in the eyes, I kept my eyes down on our laps.

"I don't know," I paused, "But I liked it,"

He let go of my left hand, and tilted my chin up to look at him. He looked so youthful then, and confused, but tired all the same. Our lips met again, more forceful this time, his arms wrapped around my my middle, and mine around his shoulders. I felt his lips part, and I did the same, drawing the alphabet into his tongue as it danced with mine. Something burned white hot between us, I knew we both felt it, even if it had came on so suddenly.

We broke again, both gasping for breathe. I felt like I couldn't look at him, but I wasn't ashamed, just afraid, of what I wasn't sure.

"We can't do this, we can't," I started, someone was going to get killed, I just knew it, that's how these stories always go.

"We already have," he said very slowly, and he was right. Even before we'd started kissing, from that first moment near the lake it was to late. My eyes met his then, and I saw the rest of my life, happy. Not literally the rest of my life, not every event planned out, but I saw happiness, and I knew I would forever be happy with him. I had to fallow him to the ends of the earth if that's what it took. I wasn't sure if he felt the same. He was a stone cold killer, but did that prevent him from making a love connection? Was this love? My head was spinning.

Suddenly there was a great crash, and I was being ripped away from Deidara sideways, his face was horrified, I'm sure mine looked much the same. I turned, twisting in this assailants arms, gaining where I was and how I was positioned.

"Let go of me!" I shouted, kicking, however, my legs couldn't reach, who was this? He was kidnapping me! An explosion went off, and I thanked God for Deidara's speed. Suddenly I was falling, and then I wasn't, being caught up in the arms of another, who was also not Deidara. I put my had to his neck and gripped, he had some sort of mask on, I couldn't see much else than a bare neck, and I grabbed the skin. I was pulling, and pulling and much to my horror, this man's neck stretched with me, I'd brought my hand about a foot away from where I'd initially seized him, and it seemed not even to bother him. So then, I could do the same with him arm?

Thinking quick, I grabbed his elbow, twisting my arm behind me to get a hold on him, and ripped as hard as I could, and then I was falling again. They weren't men, they were blobs of some sort.

Aki caught me, I landing on his back, a leg on each side of him, and we both let a 'omph,' as I hit. I thanked God again I hadn't landed on his horns. Deidara was beside me in a flash, but It was to late, Aki poofed.

When I regained some sense of clear thought, I could her a water fall in the background, but I could only see my deer friend's brown fur.

"Are you alright?" I heard him ask.

"Fine," I said, sitting up, I'd landed next to his head. Aki was laying sprawled I could see, and he to sat up, one leg poised to stand, the other three under him. I noticed his antler was broken, the other half laying next to him. It had been so unique, the drop tines had made it special.

"What exactly happened?" I asked, "where are we?"

"Well, long story short, we are in my home, the mountain of the Deer," He answered, and looked around. "Our village, if you want to call it that, is on top of that waterfall," Looking their was a slope carved into the side, a small doe and a fawn were walking up it, baskets filled with something green, it was to far to see from here. I judged the distance between the slope about twenty yards.

"I couldn't think what else to do, I couldn't," He started, but I shushed him.

"Thank you for saving my life," I said and smiled, patting his head.

"It was my job," He puffed out his chest proudly, and nodded his head.

"What about Deidara?" I asked, I knew he was in trouble.

"Im not sure, but I can't send you back on my own, theres no rush, time passes slower here," He tried to assure me, but I wasn't taking it. I needed to get back to Deidara! But the cervine refused to let me rush, saying again time passed slower guided me to the village, It was quiet, small, built on two sides of the river, a sturdy looking old bridge for crossing the raging river. It was quieter up here somehow. The deer lived in grass huts, I assumed being deer, they used them only for sleeping, as deer didn't cook or watch TV. Fawns played in the street, as bucks shot the shit and does worked over baskets of some sort, holding various leafy plants. As we entered town, they starred. I felt sort of uncomfortable, and walked closer to Aki.

A large buck, larger than Aki who's shoulders were about the same as mine, waked from the crowd then, and greeted us. He shared Aki's black swirls on his pelt, though his rack was much larger, and his shoulders much wider, he was the same colors, save for he had white back legs, instead black.

"Well well, Akimitsu! What do we have here! Hey that one looks a little beat up, are you doing your job?" He said, but my deer only rolled his eyes.

"I'm doing fine, thank you, get out of the way," he said, stepping aside and continued walking. A doe joined him as they walked together in a line. The villagers going back to what they'd previously been doing.

We crossed the bridge, and it became evident though ease dropping, that this larger buck was Aki's brother. The doe stood for a few seconds, and began walking with me. She was much smaller, her shoulders only coming to my ribcage. She was a blackish gray, purple highlights under her eyes and down her legs, and she wore a choker of sorts, green with a brown stone set in the middle.

"I'm Kunimitsu," she said politely, "I'm getting married to Natsumitsu,"

I nodded. I supposed it made sense for her to tell me this, Deer moved in herds and as Aki's summoner, I was part of this herd, sort of.

"I'm May, Nice to meet you,"

"Like wise," She said.

We walked thought this quiet forest, up a steep hill to an old, traditional Japanese, house with rice paper screens and everything. The two males had been leading us this whole way, but they both stopped, and looked back to me as if I should know what to do next.

"You are my summoner, you must open the door," Aki said, very calmly. Still with his broken antler in hand, I stepped between them. My deer friends stayed outside. Vines had taken over the inside, leading the way for various other sorts of plants and small trees. Only a straight hallway, sort of dark at that, was the only option to move though the house, placed directly in front of me. Aki's brother closed the door behind us, dimming the little light I had. The hallway was short, and opening another sliding door, I entered the hall of The King.

The King, I call him, a great stag lay on a pile of dead leaves. He was a simple brown deer, not unlike a white tail from home. His right eye was nearly white, and I knew he was blind, but his left eye, a deep chocolate brown, looked all knowing. He was battle scared, a single across his graying face, and great cloth lay on his back, covering his mid section and the majority of the larger scars on his body. From his great antlers, a great many things dangled from thing ropes, crystals and bottles, all looked old and cloudy, their had to be fifty points between the two sides of the rack.

"Greetings," he said simply, his eyes never leaving me. There was a large hole in the ceiling, and only that illuminated the room, The walls were dark and worn from the elements, but you could see maybe the ghost of blood spatter on the furthest wall behind The King.

"Hello," I said quietly.

"You are?"

"May," I answered, and he rose to his great straight legs, thick from years of training. He hadn't lost his physique in his old age.

"I was quiet surprised when Akimitsu came to me and told me that he'd been summoned. I don't think anyone had summoned a deer from our village in near fifty years. What is that you have there?" He asked, motioning his great head to the antler in my hand.

"Its Aki's sir, He broke it saving me and my partner," I responded, holding it out.

"Please bring it to me," He asked, and I crossed the room. I set the antler down before him on the ground, and he inspected it before lifting his head to inspect me.

"You are very special, how did you come to be here?"

"Well Aki," I started but he cut me off,

"Not here, per-say, but here on this earth," he corrected.

"Well I was swimming and then..I just woke up here," I tried give him a short but factual answer. He nodded.

"And you are aware that you cannot stay here?" He asked, his eyes flashing concern.

"Why not?" He sighed deeply and thought for a moment before answering me.

"Because there are to many beings here. Do you catch my drift? You are one more than there should be at any given time,"

I did understand. I'd gone to a different dimension and my thoughts had been correct. There would be repercussion. I cannot stay here.

"What will happen if I don't go?"

"Then our two universes will collapse in on each other."

I didn't want to leave, I'd made a life for myself here, if that's what you could call it, I'm happy, and, I'd fallen in love. Yes, love. There's no way I was going back.

"I want to go back to Deidara," I said, avoiding the topic.

"As you wish," and then he was gone, I was on my feet again in the forest, Deidara hadn't moved, and our assailants were still here, poised to strike.

"Where'd you go?" He panted, his hands raised and two of the white, clay blob people stood on the battleground.

"Don't worry, I just, Aki took me back with him by accident," I responded, pulling a knife from his pocket. The bruised bomber only watched me from the corner of his eye, his attention never turning away from the enemy.

"Was I gone long?" I asked, reading myself if they were to strike, and I turned, my back to his now, in case more came from another direction.

"A couple minutes," He responded, seeming to have caught his breathe now, "these things don't explode, they just sort of melt and reform un."

"They stretch, There isn't any cutting or strangling them," I added, "but I have an idea, can you make a crater or something?"

Suddenly there were spiders everywhere, tiny clay spiders that burrowed quickly into the ground, however, the smaller of the clay blob people had been sacrificed.

"Don't step on the ground there, it'll explode," he told me, like I was a child.

"Thats the plan," I said, throwing the knife into the center, sending off a chain reaction of a few of the spiders around it, creating a hole In the forest floor.

"I'm gonna distract one, can you put the other in that hole and cover it somehow?" He nodded, and jumped into the air, one of the 'man' jumped too, and with a few quick paced kicks, the thing was in the hole, and Deidara was flying somewhere. Thought I shouldn't have taken my eyes off of the second. He came at me with a knife, and that's when I noticed neither of these two had a face. He raised the knife as he came, poised to stab me, and without a weapon now, I could only use my forearm to block. My arms never made contact with the knife, I was lucky enough to be able to keep it away from myself. I kept backing up, as he continued to me, when I realized he knew where the mines were too, and was pushing me to them. Quickly I switched my position, and focusing chakra to my foot, kicked sideways. The 'man' went flying, and Deidara kicked him into the hole with the other, who had strangely not tried to escape.

The larger clay blob had morphed into a bird by now, And Deidara grabbed me up before setting the rest of the land mines, burring, and hopefully killing them. On the bird, finally we could relax, and I thanked that Aki had not fallowed me back. It seemed we were only ever safe on the bird.

"So who do you think is controlling them?" I asked over the wind.

"I think, his name is Madara, or something, I used to know him but, he went by Tobi then," he paused as if searching his thoughts, "Hes got some sort of jutsu, and I think that explains completely how you got here."

I felt like Daisy Buchanan as she spoke to her cousin Nick about his neighbor.

"Jutsu? What Jutsu?"

"I don't know the full extent of it, I only got what the civilians were told, but supposedly, he can control portals to different dimensions. When I knew him, I thought he was just some idiot, but, he was he one that started the last war. I thought they defeated him."

I reached over and took hold of his hand. He'd implied it was because of the dimension jutsu that the portal had opened between our worlds had opened at the bottom of that lake. I'd just happened to have fallen though. If that portal was purposeful or not, I didn't know.

"It'll be alright," I assured, thought I had no room to talk. I had no idea about any of this.

"I think those things were after you," Dei said after a while of silence, "I think he knows you came though the portal, and I think your useful to him somehow hm." He never let go of my hand.

"When I went to the deer village with Aki, their leader told me I couldn't stay here. He told me that the two universes were going to collapse in on each other." I never let go of his. We both knew we wanted to be together, and were willing to take the chance.

"Then we'll both have to find a way to stay together un,"

"Promise me you won't leave, promise," I demanded, and for a moment, he looked away from the sky in front of us and to me.

"I promise," he said, with a small smile, and his eyes went back to the journey at hand.

* * *

I hope everybody liked this chapter! This is a really fun story to write, and I was thinking of adding more filler chapters after the end of the plot line until it finally finishes out. I wanted to work more with my own set of characters, though since Deidara hates Sasuke, I thought about adding that as another arc for the story.

I also wanted to mention about May and Mei. May is her actual name, however it isn't japaneese. Mei is Chinese, I believe, and since Japan and China are fairly close geography wise, Deidara might recognize this name rather than May. They also both sound fairly alike, so neither would realize, not even written, as Deidara uses a different writing system.

Stay tuned!


	6. Chapter 6

It was pretty late at night by the time the bird landed and jumping off, I couldn't help but feel a little unprotected. While we were safe from most attacks if we flew high enough everyone could see us in the air, making it an equal disadvantage. Deidara called the bird back to his hands and balled the clay, placing it back in his pouch on his hip. I'd gotten turned around during the fight, and I wasn't sure which direction we were in, but we'd landed next to a lake, the only lake I'd seen for miles, kilometers actually, in this rock wasteland.

"We're pretty beat up and dirty so," He said and looked around, sighing. We'd left everything in that clearing (what little we had) though he still had the vet wrap in his pocket from when he'd wrapped up my arm, and the lighter. Both times we hadn't planned on being attacked, and both times we'd been caught of guard and nearly lost everything.

"Is there a village nearby? Maybe we could steal something," I suggested, he just nodded. We'd have to after this. He was the first to start into the water, taking his shirt off, and I looked away, blushing, and quickly covering my eyes.

"Whats the matter un? To gorgeous for you?" I could almost heard the smirk on his face.

"No, I've never uh, I'm sure you haven't, but I've never," I stuttered. Then his hands were on my writs and pulling my palms from my eyes.

"Don't worry about it hm," He reassured me in a happy tone, and then I was forced to look at his face. We could be mature about this, I shouldn't worry. However, I was not about to undress. Not that I was sure he could see much even if I did. It was dark and there wasn't a light for miles. We both crossed the dusty terrain together and waited into the water. It was cold, really cold, and I almost didn't want to get in, but I wanted a bath. He continued in further than I had, I stopped at my hips, I didn't want to go any further. He scoffed and let go of my hand. My breathing hitched as he left me, and soon he was out of my limited sight.

"Deidara!" I called,

"Right here," he responded sort of flatly and I sighed but he was already touching my hand before I could finish exhaling. I took hold of his now wet hand again, and we went deeper. It was stupid to think I would drown, I knew he wouldn't let me, but the fear was still there. We didn't go much deeper than our necks, though I was on my tip toes in the sand. I squinted though the darkness in attempt to see his face.

"So, where you come from, whats it like?"

"Well," I drawled, "We compensate for our lack of jutsu with technology and guns mostly, you'd like guns, its a contained explosion and it fires a bullet to kill people," I explained, seeing as they clearly didn't have guns here. Probably no use for them seeing as jutsu seemed all powerful.

"Why contained? Why would you try and harness true beauty like that?" I should have known he would say something like that. I paused for an answer.

"Its too hard to control otherwise," I explained, that was the first thing I could think of. He seemed to accept that answer.

"What else? What about you?" He was coming closer. I could feel the water move.

"Well, I have a mom and a dad and an awesome dog," I started, and thought for a moment, "And I go to school, I finished my final year of schooling, and uh, uh, I like to draw I guess?"

Deidara didn't say anything, but again I felt the water move as he came closer, and then he was touching me. He was so warm. His arms wrapped around me in a strong grip. We just stood, and he held me for a long time.

"What about you? Where do you come from?"

"A ninja village, the village hidden in the rock to be exact, I was part of their explosion corps, and then I defected," Deidara mused, "I was wanted there before I faked my death."

I could feel something deep inside me, something more than butterflies, and I felt light headed, but in a good way. I smiled at him though the darkness instead of responding.

"Dei," I said very quietly, I wasn't sure if he heard me.

"Hmm?" by his tone he seemed pretty happy. He put his hands on my thighs and carried us out of the water. He set me down on my feet and grabbed his clay, and made us another bird. I wondered if we were going to fly, until he pulled me on top of it, and it closed it wings around us. Making sort of a cradle for us both, the top open so we could see the stars in the night sky. He pulled me close to him, and sighed.

"Dei," I started again, and he hmmed, again.

"Whats going on?" my voice was quiet at the moment. I wasn't exactly calm, but not upset yet either.

"What do you mean hm?" His tone sounded confused. I didn't want to ask him. I could hear my voice asking him, 'do you love me?' and I was afraid for a moment that I actually had said it out loud. Shame on me, how could I even think about love? I'd been with him this way for less than twenty four hours!

"I don't even know what I'm supposed to think. Yesterday we kissed, and today this, and its different every day, and we move around so much, is this normal?" I almost choked on my words a few times, and I was surprised I didn't stutter.

"I really don't know what your talking about?" I could barely see his eye brows furrow and him scowling, "Wait, are you asking me if were acting like a couple? I don't get it."

"That wasn't the question," I narrowed my eyes at him and raised my voice.

"What _is_ the question?" he asked, stressing the 'is', he sounded maybe annoyed?

"Do you..?" I started hesitantly, but I never finished. I couldn't make myself ask him if he, well.

"Is this like culture shock or something? You sound delusional, I think maybe you should just go to sleep alright?" but I didn't have an answer for him. I didn't know what I was talking about anymore. The L word, right? Why couldn't I just ask him?

I knew why I couldn't ask him. Because that was stupid, and I was a dumb teenager who thought something more of this relationship than it was really worth.

He was right, I did sound delusional, what I was trying to say made no sense without actually saying 'love'. And maybe it was culture shock. I'd gone from people around me every day, people I'd known for years, to just one person overnight. I fell asleep wrapped in his arms.

Explosives woke me out of what seemed like too short of a sleep. I was dressed and the bird's wings had formed a ceiling over me instead of around me now. Groggy, I crawled out of the clay structure, and narrowing my eyes because of the suns brightness. I ached. Across the lake I could see a familiar blonde head wading in the water. I vaguely remembered watching a movie where the main characters shot fish out of the water with a rifle to eat and figured he was up to something of the same.

I looked around, we were going to need something to cook them over after all. Thought this was in fact, a wasteland. Nothing but rocks and dirt for miles, a few grasses here and there, and a dead tree in the distance, but I knew I could never haul it back to the campsite by myself. I didn't have to worry about it though, because Deidara had made his way back across the lake, using chakra in his feet to walk on water, and dropped the dead fish at my feet.

"Morning," he said, and I grumbled a reply. He was off on the bird in a few seconds, breaking of a few branches from said dead tree, and brought them back, using the bird to carry them. Why hadn't I been graced with useful abilities like that?

A fire was started, though with the morning sun beating down it was almost too hot near it. I wasn't crazy about fish, but hey, it was better than nothing. Come to think f it, had I even eaten yesterday?

"Whats the plan for today?" I asked between bites, and he kept eating, using his mouth full as an excuse to get more time to think. Today wasn't normal, not for me at least, not after last night. He seemed to have already forgot.

"I was thinking you could summon Aki, and we could ride him to the next village,"

I wasn't sure if I could use Aki like that, but maybe his big boned brother would be willing to come instead. I'd be less worried of hurting Natsumitsu.

"I should teach you how to use a henge before we go hm," and then his hands were on mine, showing me the right signs. He demonstrated the henge, turning into a older dark haired man. I questioned him, asking why I would need to use a henge if no one knew my face, but he explained we wanted to keep it that way.

We were apparently going to a large ninja village, and I would need to keep my true identity hidden. He dispelled the henge, and I tried it myself. Summoning chakra to my hands, I'd tried to make myself look older. Probably in my thirties, and when the smoke cleared around me he nodded in approval. I didn't care, and I didn't need him to tell me I was doing a good job.

"Pretty good," he remarked, and showed me how to dispel it. I made the hand signs for the summons, but this time, I concentrated hard on only summoning Natsumitsu. It seemed that's the best way to work jutsu here, intent. Aki appeared, however.

"Not you again," he sighed, I wanted to punch him. We were seeing so much of each other lately, come to think of it, I'd summoned him almost every day since I first learned how, but he was still complaining ever chance he got. Much to his distaste, Aki did carry us to the village upon Dei's request. As we neared the village, the terrain grew more mountainous, and the footing was rocky, and I worried for Aki's feet and back. He'd already carried us so far and this seemed unfair to him. About a kilometer from the village, we used our henge.

I was amazed by the size of the village at first, and then by the destruction. Everything looked tired, and dirty, holes blown in building walls, just generally destroyed and rubble lay all over. The majority of the still in tact buildings were either built into large pillars of stone, or hung from them in the air. Power lines linked the building like a spiderweb, and I thought that odd, why wouldn't they have taken the time and done it orderly? A sort of ring of mountains surrounded us, acting as the villages wall. No one stopped us at the gate, though there was clearly a spot for a gate keeper to sit.

"Where are we Dei?" I asked, Aki, panting now, slowing his pace now that we had reached our destination. He shushed me with his hand.

"You've got to call me Kenji while were here," he whispered, and dismounted. I stayed on, and he lead Aki.

"Okay, Kenji," I said sarcastically, "Where are we?"

"The village hidden in the rock," he said, very hushed. His voice hadn't changed with his appearance. I could see his eyes scan the village. He tapped my leg, and I took that as I sign to get off. He dismissed Aki and the deer disappeared.

"What are we doing here?" I asked, a bit scared after what he'd told me last night. He hushed me again, and I stayed quiet. Instead he took my hand, and we ascended a steep set of stairs up the side of a pillar, and across a few rope bridges until he finally stopped. A square shaped house was held in the air by stressed chains, anchored to pillars of stone, and I wondered if it was safe.

Deidara knocked on the door, and we waited. I was not supposed to speak, so all I could do was wonder who's house this was to myself. It seemed that no one was home until finally the door cracked open just a bit. I could only see this woman's face but it was clear by the shade of her eyes, and the color of her hair, this was Deidara's mother.

"Could I help you?" She asked, timidly, still cowering behind the door.

"Yes, might we please come in? I have some news to speak to you about, its about your son," Deidara said quietly and matter-of-factually. Her eyes widened. The door was quickly thrown open, and she hurried us inside, Deidara pulling me in faster than I would have liked.

"Deidara what are you doing back here?" she demanded, shouting, "You'll be killed! You'll be arrested!"

"Mother!" He hissed, "Quiet down before someone hears you! I didn't know where else to go alright? I need help." She looked taken back.

"Help? My son has never asked for help in his life," she scoffed. It was apparent that Deidara had gotten his attitude from his mother. After dispelling our henges, Deidara pulled me to his other side and began unwrapping my arm. I hadn't seen it since the other day and I was under the impression it was getting better, but looking at it now, it was clear it wasn't.

Deidara's mother looked as if something inside of her clicked, something about the wound make her uncomfortable, and by the look on her face that was clear.

"Mother," Deidara said softly, his hand moving to cover my wound, and she snapped out of it.

"Yes, yes I'm sorry, I'll see what I can do," She said gently, and hurried off into another room. Deidara sat me down on the worn white couch on the east side of the room, and he seated himself to my right. Studying the house now, the rectangular room was set up with the living room in the east, a kitchen in the west, and a dinning room table in the middle. Nothing hung on the walls, and the plates and cups sat on the floor on a mat.

"I used to patch Dei up sometimes when he was young and came back from missions," her voice called from the other end of the house. I assumed it was just her trying to make me feel better about this. Deidara's mother hurried back into the room, bandages and some sort of tubed medicine in her hand, "I'm Miku by the way, Whats your name?"

"I'm May," I responded as she sat down next to me, on my left.

A sharp pair of scissors had come with her from the other room and my stitches were quickly cut and pulled from my skin from her steady hands. She then proceeded to slather whatever white ointment she'd brought on it and re-wrap it. She left the tube of medicine with me, and put the rest away.

"Well, I can probably put you two up for the night but I'm sure you know, Deidara, it isn't safe for you here," She returned to the front room, and went to the kitchen instead, starting dinner for us all. I got a bit excited. We were going to have actual food and sleep in a house! It had only been two days roughing it without an inn, but it felt like longer. I was sick of the ground, I was sick of the cold and dirt.

"Thank you," Deidara said almost solemnly and leaned back onto the couch. He seemed stressed, on edge, more so than when we had walked into the village. Then he seemed calm, like he had it all under control. Did his mother really make him that nervous?

Dinner was quiet, we all sat at the table. Deidara remarked, very plainly, it was like nothing had changed. I didn't speak most of the night, and judging by a very old looking clock on the floor, it was around midnight by the time we retired to what was once his bedroom. He again remarked in the same tone, nothing had changed. Miku stood in the hallway and exchanged glaces with Deidara, but he quickly closed the door and turned off the light.

"So you gonna let me in on it?" I asked, pretty interested in what was going on at this point, "Between you and your mom?"

"I'm a criminal and her son, she doesn't know how to feel. That's all hm," he sighed. His face looked drained. He stripped his shirt and pants before laying down. I mocked him, and settled down next to him in bed. The twin mattress was pushed up ageist a wall. It was a squeeze, but we both fit and after a while it got sort of comfortable.

I sympathized with Deidara's mother. He was a wanted criminal, a terrorist, supposed to be dead, and then he shows up at her house out of the blue, how was she supposed to feel about that? Miku's face knitted with worry every time she spoke to him, almost scared really. Even after all those facts though, he was still her son, and she had to take care of him.

"Was she afraid we were gonna get it on or something?" I joked, and that seemed to cheer him up. With a small smile he put his arm around me and squeezed me ageist his chest, giving me a small peck on the cheek. Sleep over took us quickly.

I was so tired when I got up the next morning. Deidara shook me awake around seven I supposed. He claimed the shower first, thought I didn't mind much, I was after some breakfast. Yawning, I walked, more like stumbled, into the kitchen were Miku was already busy. Seating myself at the table, I got it in my head I should say something. Anything.

"Thank you, for putting us up for the night, this is just as dangerous for you as it is for us," I smiled, I was cheerful for this early in the morning. She turned and smiled back, a light green apron on. She looked like something was still wrong. Like she hadn't gotten over it from last night, and I doubted it was my wound this time.

"Is everything okay?" I asked again, trying to mirror my previous tone, as if I hadn't noticed anything. The smile fell from her face, and she began to whisper.

"As much as I hate to ask you this, I feel light I have too. You haven't been kidnapped have you?" She looked around nervously. I made a face.

"No, no I haven't been kidnapped. Its a funny story actually," I affirmed, my tone also low. I didn't want Deidara to hear this conversation. I wasn't sure if he was above hurting his mother or not.

"Your sure? You can tell me, I can get you some kind of help," she came closer to me, talking lower now as the shower stopped.

"I am very sure. I'm going along willingly," I tried to sound serious, I didn't want her to think I was lying and get us in trouble. She touched my arm then, near my bandage.

"And he didn't do this to you?" she asked, more hesitant, and then the door opened, and she shot away from me, back to the..whatever that was she was cooking in that pot. Deidara passed us briefly in the tiny hallway on his way into his room and shut the door.

"Well, we were attacked randomly, and I ran distraction," I stated flatly. I must have responded to her liking, because she left it alone after that. My arm wasn't directly Deidara's fault, but I still blamed him. What else did I blame him for?

My near drunken rape hadn't entered in my mind since the day after it happened. That was the alcohol not Deidara I reasoned. I sort of held that ageist him, but not by much. The more I weighed my thoughts, I found I was far greater for the things he had done than the things I hadn't forgiven, but really I hadn't forgotten about any of it.

"Does he seem," I paused for the right word to come, "moody to you? Or is he always like that?" I asked. Sometimes he was fine, sometimes he was cold, and sometimes demanding. She nodded.

"I suppose its the war, you know, all those" she too paused, "dead people, he never acted like this with me at least." She started diving food then and set a plate in front of me. A thin broth soup and some dirty white rice sat in front of me. I thanked her as Deidara joined us. His long blonde hair down from its usual ponytail and wet.

"You look like a wet rat," I smirked, elbowing him. He have a small 'ha', and dug in. I helped clean up after our meal. I couldn't help but ask finally, why we were putting clean dishes on the floor. Deidara had gone back into his room and shut the door.

"Ah, well, after the fourth great Shinobi war Iwa's resources had all been used up, and really we were a poor nation to start with, so finally a civil war broke out," she said very matter of factually.

"Who won?" I asked, kneeling to set the dishes with the others.

"The people of course. I mean they took most of our men in the war, and the ninja that came back had enough too. We used to be a nation that prided ourselves on obedience for our leader. It was ironic really," She mused with a smile. That explained the destruction. Judging by that smile, things were on the mend here.

"Mei, could you do me a favor?" Miku asked very casually, and standing back up, I nodded.

"Take care of Deidara for me, alright?" That was a very serious thing to ask in such a tone. I was a little surprised at first. I reminded myself that she was still his mother.

"Of course," and I truly intending on trying my best.

"Mei," I heard Deidara's voice behind me, and turning, I faced him. Handing me a jacket, he expressed that he wanted to leave now. I didn't ask him about my shower I never got, just agreed. I noticed he had a small back packed now. That was certainly a plus, no matter what was in it. I thanked Miku and left the house, figuring they might want a minute to themselves. I descended the same stairs we'd used on the way up, and focused on a summons jutsu. I was not about to walk down a mountain after I'd just rested up.

Now or never, I could feel my chakra burning hot in my wrists. This was going to happen right, and happen now. Natsumitsu, I repeated him name over and over in my head. Now, now now! I slammed my hand down to the earth, and the seal crossed the earth. When the cloud of smoke cleared, I was not disappointed. The stag seemed confused. We make eye contact, and his great chest heaved a sigh.

"Well then, what do I owe the honor?" he asked taking the same pompous tone Aki usually took. He might have been older than Aki, but they were mostly the same I could see.

"Your going to carry us down the mountain," I deadpanned. And rolling his eyes, he agreed.

* * *

Well, Here's this chapter! I thought maybe it had some connection issue, like maybe two much going on, but I like it the way it is for now. I'd like to get a beta for this story, to catch stuff I miss when editing, but that's alright, I'm doing, and its fine.

**I'd love some feedback! please review!**


	7. Chapter 7

The road back down the mountain hadn't changed from the other day. It was still as rocky and steep as ever, though trying to go down, I admit, was much harder. Natsu was stumblingly and sliding in places, and we were always leaned back to brace ourselves. We took the north side down the mountain this time. The terrain got narrower the farther down slope, the path about six foot wide, and curved around to where I couldn't see.

"Mei, I've sort of been thinking about the other day," Dei started. I turned my head to look at him as he spoke.

"And which day would that be?" I asked, putting my hands on Natsumetsu's antlers so I could adjust myself to look at him better without falling off.

"When we were attacked by those faceless soldiers. I know I told you that I knew a guy who could warp dimensions, and I was thinking, what if he sent them? He was my partner for a while, he knows my chakra signature, I'd be easy to track even if no one else knew about me,"

I studied his face which was twisted in a very serious and concerned expression.

"So, have you figured out why he wants me here yet?" I asked, but he shook his head. Suddenly a rock gave way under Natsu's foot, and we slid. The deer scrambled to get his footing, but it jousted Deidara and I, and then suddenly we were falling. Natsu was on his side, and I couldn't really see where Deidara went, as I was rolling down he slope with Natsu. Finally we stopped, his hooves planted into the ground inches from my face, and I felt like everything could have been alright.

"Mei!" Deidara shouted, he sounded concerned, "don't move!"

But I did move, I sat up and I fell. Shrieking I could see Deidara's face over the ridge as I hit the water, luckily, it wasn't far of a fall.

"Stop it, stop it, stop it!" I screamed, pulling chakra to everywhere I could muster it, and then I was somewhat floating. I squirmed my way over to the side, and grabbing onto a boulder, I hauled myself out of the water. Deidara was on his way down next, using chakra to walk down the side of the ridge to get me. Slowly, he meet me on the rock, and helped me up. He didn't say anything, only helped me walk back up the rock wall.

I wasn't prepared for the surprise at the top. As we crested the ridge, a man stood, alone, a large blank mask over his face, dressed in a dark cloak with a single red clouds across the front. His hair was mid length, and black, and as I looked closer at the mask, I could see his eyes. Suddenly Deidara hand was clasped across my face.

"Don't look at him Mei!" Deidara yelled, and I could hear the rustle of cloth as he went for his clay.

"Now now, don't be like that," a voice that could only be the stranger's spoke. I had a pretty good idea who this was.

"Is this?" I breathed.

"Yes," the bomber affirmed. This was his former partner. I couldn't see what happened next, but I could feel something hit me, not hard, it couldn't have been a weapon, and when I saw the light again, I knew Deidara had fallen beside me. I knelt, grabbing hold of him best I could. He wasn't dead, I knew that much, but I wasn't sure what else I could do now. After all, Deidara was the one that knew what to do, Deidara always instructed me during a fight.

I didn't want look up at the stranger, I knew I would meet the same fate as Deidara. Suddenly I had to, he was in front of me then, moving far faster than Deidara. He'd tilted my chin up gently, forcing me to look into his eyes. I whimpered.

Nothing over took me, we just looked at each other for a long time.

"At first I didn't think anyone was going to be stupid enough to fall though one of the portals I put in your world," he began, "but, here you are. I suppose I owe you an explanation. I'll make it brief. You see, young lady, I can't get what I want without you. With your strengths, it makes you perfect,"

Perfect for what? What was he talking about? His eyes changed then, something in the red iris flickered, and I was out.

* * *

When I woke, I was shackled. Not to anything, but they were simply around my writs. I was in a cell I supposed, I was his prisoner wasn't I? Where else do you put prisoners? I sort of wasn't surprised however I was scared. Very scared. Deidara was no where in sight and I wondered if this Tobi person had killed him. That's what ninja to right? Kill each other?

Immediately I began to cry. He couldn't just kill Deidara! I loved him! As the tears flowed down my cheeks, I vowed to tell him so as soon as I got out of here even if I would be telling it to a grave. I loved him, I love him, and I always will love him. There was no way Deidara was just dead like that, I reasoned, he couldn't really be dead. Come hell or high water, the bomber would be alright eventually, right? He promised.

I couldn't stop picturing Deidara on the ground, his eyes closed, and his throat slit or a blade in his chest or something of the like. I only cried for a bit longer until I finally shook the feeling. Finally able to push that out of my head, I decided I needed to get out of here. What had I been doing all along?

My cell was a simple, blank white room. The walls were concrete and the door, I wasn't exactly sure what it was made out of, was closed tight. I walked around in a circle, still a little nervous, surveying the room, but when I found no hope of escape, I decided to sit and wait it out. I settled in the back left corner, facing the door and waited.

There wasn't a clock or a window (just a terrible buzzing overhead light) and I couldn't tell what time it was or how long I had been here when finally Tobi came though the door. I balled myself up, my fists clenched.

"Oh come now," He started, his hands out, "Don't be like that. How about a nice dinner hm?"

"Fuck you!" I spat, "Where's Deidara?"

I couldn't see behind the mask, but I could imagine the scowl.

"He's now with us right now, and in case you haven't guessed, he has no idea where we are, and those cuffs seal chakra just in case you were thinking of attacking me. Come now, don't make a fuss. Its only dinner," He continued, but I'd already decided to be difficult.

"Make me," I said, remembering what Deidara said about his eyes and focusing on his chest. He sighed, and proceed to pick me up and carry me. I didn't struggle, I'd make my mind up to wait until the right time instead of exhausting myself now. I was facing the ground as he carried me though the halls and finally sat me down in a chair. The table infront of it was a beautiful dark finished wood with a grand western-style dinner set out for me. I hadn't seen any sort of western food since I'd came here.

"Whats this?" I asked sort of hesitantly. I knew what it was. Dinner, food, for me.

"Dinner. For you," he affirmed, "Eat all you like. I've done some traveling as you can see,"

Traveling? For me? I looked over the food. All sorts of things, hot dogs, pizza, pasta, hamburgers, french fries, even! Where'd all this come from? Wait a second, this might all be poisoned.

"I know what your thinking, its not. If it makes you feel any better, Deidara is not dead, so you can stop being angry with me," He said ,seeming to be able to read my mind there at first.

"Your lying," I accused, he simply shook his head. He picked up a fork then, a real silver fork, and put it to a plate of what looked to be 'Kraft Mac and Cheese.' I looked down ,and then back up at him.

"I want that plate," I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking, "That way I know it isn't poisoned," and he surprisingly obliged. I got up and took his plate, and handed him my empty one, and took it back to my seat. If he was going to eat it then it must be alright. I picked at the elbow shaped noodles, looking between my plate and him. He on the other hand had gotten quite a bit of food and was cutting it up with a fork.

"So, you gonna tell me whats going on? I am not keen on sitting here wondering," I shot, he looked up, and I looked away.

"You see, I am collecting demons. Animal demons. Since you get along with animals so well, I was hoping you'd let me, " he paused, "barrow your services for a few hours, and then your all done. In return I'll send you back to where you came from," he was looking up at me now, I could barely see him out of the corner of my eye. I was more than suspicious.

"Jokes on you, I don't want to go back," I smirked.

"Well, that's fine too. I'll tell you what, if what I want to happen happens, I'll go back in your place. Are you aware of the result of dimension hopping?" He asked, seeming to be picking his words carefully. I nodded. That sounded good.

"What do I have to do?" I asked. This sounded too much like a business deal.

"Nothing actually, I'm going to do all the hard work," a business deal that sounded to good to be true, "You see, I have all the pieces but one for this, and I'm insanely happy you have chosen to help, because with your help, I can bypass the missing piece," he didn't sound very happy. He continued using the same monotone voice for all of his speech.

"And you won't go back on your word?" I asked. I had every reason to think he was lying but I choose not to give in to those thoughts. I wanted to be with Deidara forever, and I could only do that if I got to stay here. If Tobi was going to go back to my world for me the worlds wouldn't implode and everything would be alright!

"I wouldn't dream of it dear," He said, and removed his mask. He was pasty white, and looked sort of young to me. He'd removed the cloak and now wore a simple black shirt with fishnet arms.

"So, Tobi, Thats your name right? Tobi? Where'd all this food come from?" I asked ,looking down at my plate of no cold food and to the table, "I haven't seen anything from home since I got here,"

"Tobi and I are two completely different people, actually. This food came from a large city near here. Lots of the smaller villages probably don't know these things exist, mush less how to make it," he cleared his throat at the end, and whipped his mouth with his napkin.

"Whats your name then?" I asked, taking food from bowls and platters and putting it onto my plate. Free junk food was far to good to pass up. Plus, this guy was sounding better and better everyday, "you must know Tobi then?"

"You may call me Madara," He readjusted himself in his seat and ignored my second question. He must know Tobi, at least, his word choice made it seem like he did. Madara spoke so formal and calmly, it was strange really.

"Where's Deidara?" I demanded then. The thought had just popped into my head now that I reasoned I was safe.

"In that clearing where we left him, he's probably awake now," Madara leaned back in his chair. I assumed he was finished eating. I swallowed my mouthful of food.

"Why didn't you bring him with me?"

"Well, you see, Deidara doesn't exactly see eye to eye with me. I was the one who demanded he join the Akasuki, I can't imagine he'd like me very much now. He's alright, and he'll be even better how that you can be together," he assured.

"Whats Akasuki?" I asked, having also finished. A servant came from who knows where and took our plates. Another brought us both a glass of red wine.

"Akasuki is an organization I used to start gathering my pieces, the demons." Madara explained, "It was made solely of S-class criminals like Deidara."

I picked up my glass, swirling around the alcoholic grape juice around carefully. I was putting things together now. After he defected from his village, he'd joined Akasuki. That's where Tobi and Sasori were from. That's where he got his arms stitched back together.

"Would you like to see Deidara's last Bingo book entry?" Madara asked, producing a small black book from his person. A servant carrying the wine bottle acted as our middle man, handigng it to me and refilling Madara's glass. I opened the book, quickly flipping pages until I found Deidara's picture. He didn't look so much younger than he did now.

"I can't read this," I said quietly. Handing it back, he began to read allowed.

"Wanted for theft from the Iwagakure government, treason, multiple terrorist bombings, kidnapping of the Kazekage, shal I go on?" He asked. I shook my head no. I didn't want to hear anymore, I didn't wan to know how high his death toll reached, or how high his bounty had gone.

I'd never been forced to really confront that my Dei was a criminal. Sure, it was always relevant that he was wanted, but I'd never had all this information shoved in my face. This implied that he'd killed so many people, innocent people probably. I was friends (lovers even) with this monster. This would never go away I reasoned, I'd have to stay on the run with him for the rest of our lives, maybe forever wouldn't be as long as I hoped it way.

But he said he'd faked his death, right? No one knew he was alive? But people certainly kept finding us.

"Is that a current entry?" I asked, he shook his head.

"There's been another issued without him in it, the latest. Supposedly he was killed by another wanted criminal." He paused, "I wonder how long he can keep this up?" He mused, and I knew we were in deep shit. Some one would find us eventually. Someone would know Deidara wasn't dead, and take him from me.

"I changed my mind, I want to go home and I want Deidara to come with me," I blurted, and only after did it occur to me it might have been rude. Madara nodded.

"That can also be arranged," This was too easy. Was he just telling me things to make me happy or could it actually happen? He was lying though his teeth and I was so deaf, no, not deaf, it wasn't that I couldn't hear his words I refused.

"I think its time you turned in for tonight, I'll see you tomorrow, alright?" He asked, standing. I shrugged and stood too. A servant man took me to a room, a dark wood canopy bed was the only thing in the room. I climbed in to bed and examined the sheets. No weapons or traps, just dark violet sheets. I hadn't seen a window in this place the entire time I'd been here, and I wondered if we were underground. My thoughts drifted again to Deidara.

My Deidara, my boyfriend. Honestly now I was a bit afraid of him. Why? I questioned myself. That never mattered to me before and he'd even threaten me before! Now though, it was different. Everything was real, people really did die, though I'd never actually seen any of said deaths in my time here. I settled for missing him. This was our first night apart in over two weeks. I wanted his arms around me and his steady breathing. I wanted our silent understanding and the want to be around someone else was real.

* * *

Whats Madara up to besides screwing with Mays feelings? I'm not sure if you can assume or not haha. I hope you all enjoy!

I've thrown the plot into gear here finally! I just want to say thanks to everyone giving this the time of day! I can see a few of you keeping up with this!It makes me feel really happy!

I'm also throwing ideas around for a sequel, so stay tuned for that!


	8. Chapter 8

I was mostly shut up in the bedroom for what I guessed to be about three days. Madara promised he'd see me again, but he never came. Meals were brought to me and a guard was stationed outside of my door. He assured me that his lord, Madara, only wanted me to remain safe until it was time for me to lend him my assistance. Remain safe from what? What was in this building I needed protection from? Maybe it was nothing, maybe this was a lie but I refused to allow myself to believe that. Madara was a good man! He was going to help Deidara and I stay together!

On the fourth day Madara came for me. I was bored out of my mind in the bedroom and more than gladly fallowed him from the room.

"Today is it then?" I asked, I'd been laying on the bed for the majority of the time here, and I was happy to stretch my legs.

"Today is the day, yes," He affirmed.

"Why'd we have to wait so long?" I asked outright, unafraid of the answer. It couldn't be much of anything.

"This ritual must be preformed on the day that the universes will, well, you know, today at three o' clock, the exact time you got here, it will be three weeks, and the time you had to get back to your world will be over. Its imperative to the process, the ritual must happen at just the precise time," he explained. It all made sense. He took me to a sparingly furnished sitting room with book cases lining the walls and a clock sat on the mantel of a fireplace in the center of the back wall. Looking at said clock I read it to be around eleven thirty.

"Could you teach me to read please? I know I wont need it anymore, but I'd still like to know so I can teach Deidara English," I asked, picking up a thinner book from a stack on the floor next to the only couch in the room.

"Not today, I'm afraid," He said sitting down. I frowned, well alright then, I'll have to get a 'English for dummies' book once I got back home. I remained standing in silence, he shifted quite often on the couch, also quiet. Maybe he was nervous about this all?

"This is safe right?" I asked, "This ritual?"

"Yes, yes," he said quickly, "please do not worry, but I also ask you, please stop asking so many question," His tone was harsher at the end, I was sort of taken back. I needed to get away from this guy, I knew, but I was sort of screwed wasn't I? I had no way back and Deidara wasn't here. I was under the impression that this ritual would stop the implosion of the universes, but had he ever came out and said that really? No, no he hadn't.

"Could you remove these shackles? They're beginning to hurt," I said, coming closer and holding out my wrists to him. He thought for a moment, and obliged. The metal cuffs falling to the floor with a clunk. I rubbed my now sore wrists. Come to think of it, I could probably remove the bandage off of my arm too. I undressed the wound to find it was a bit pinker than the rest of my skin, scared and ugly, but healed none the less. I was bored still, and Madara refused to talk tome now, not even small talk. The last time I prodded him, he ignored my words and the time before that he'd snapped at me. Finally two o'clock rolled around.

Madara stood, and ushered me to fallow him. We walked down endless hallways that seemed to twist into a maze of sorts until we finally reached a large wooded door. It was probably ten feet, and after performing a quick hand sign, I heard it click unlocked, and it creaked open.

Inside was an alter, the room lit with torches instead of lights. I swallowed hard. I could feel my face twist into a nervous frown. I stopped, but he pulled me in. The door shut behind us.

"So what-" I began to ask, however I was cut off by roughly being thrown onto the alter.

"You insolent little girl, did you honestly think I was befriending you?" He hissed, and as I tried to rise, I was brought back down by strings of chakra. I gasped, not even aware it was possible.

"A little trick I picked from Sasori," Madara smirked, and though I fought hard against them, I couldn't break the strings. They looked so thin and flimsy! Suddenly he was threading hand signs, No, no this couldn't be good. I was screaming then, my hands held above my head. It was impossible to counter attack.

"Get away! Get away from me please!" my voice growing horse from the shear volume I was using. He payed me no mind. Suddenly two men burst into the room, knocking the door open.

"Lord Madara, there's a man here on a bird, hes killing everyone!" The man to the left shouted. It became apparent the longer I looked at him, they were both fatally wounded. One was missing an arm, bleeding endlessly to the ground, the other was missing apart of his skull. I was surprised either one of them was still standing. I could hear explosions off in the distance.

Deidara had come for me!

"Damn, damn, damn!" The black haired man above me swore and the hand signs stopped, "Shut the door!" he demanded, but it was to late. Both men dropped dead as an explosion rocked the room. Fire exploded though the doors, burning them both and singing all places in the room. Madara was knocked back by the blast, his chakra strings breaking, and I jumped to my feet.

Foolishly, I ran into the flames.

"Deidara!" someone was screaming. Whos voice was that? That couldn't be? It was mine. I didn't even sound like myself. Suddenly, though my limited sight, a Phoenix came to me.

"Mei!" it screamed. I could only stand awestruck. This bird, this, beautiful mythical creature born of its own ash, spoke to me? We were not entirely unalike. I too had been born again from nothing into this world.

"Mei!" it screamed again, however, it was not the bird speaking to me. It was Deidara. Landing the great explosive next to me, the blonde haired bomber nearly jumped into my arms. I collapsed into his.

"Mei, my God Mei, I was afraid I'd never see you again," He was crying into my shoulder, I could feel his hot tears hit my neck. Deidara, a shinobi, a wanted murder, was crying over me.

"I love you," I breathed slowly. Why was I suddenly feeling so week?

"I love you too," he whispered, pulling away from me to look into my eyes. My fears had all gone. I without a doubt, wanted to be with him forever. Truly, entirely, and lastingly. I was about to tell him that when a fist connected with his jaw. Neither of us had been paying attention. This was my fault. I'd gotten Deidara into all of this, and now my temper flared.

Madara turned to me then, casting another punch my way that hit me in the chest. It felt like he broke something as I screamed silently and flew back. Worst of all, I couldn't see Deidara.

Suddenly, acting on auto pilot, I started casting hand signs, again and again and again, summoning Akimitsu, Natsumitsu, his Fiance Kunimitsu, and finally, The King.

My mouth gaped in Awe. I'd just summoned him? I'd just summoned him! Surely He would help me!

"What a fine mess this is," Natsu remarked, laughing cockily. His brother was much more nervous. Aki danced in place, looking back at me with worried eyes. I couldn't read Kunimitsu, her face wasn't in my line of view, however, I didn't have time to think about that.

"You there! Madara Uchiha," The King bellowed, "Be finished here! You must return the girl to her world, you fool, you will doom us all!" Suddenly I was up, ripping my shirt to ribbons. I remembered what Deidara had said about his eyes, and figured they would need to be covered.

"We are immune to the sharingan's power," Aki assured me, "But you will need one, and so will he," He motioned his half rack to Deidara, who was picking himself up off of the ground. Had it taken that long or was he planning something. I'd oped not to tie the cloth around my eyes. I would need to see to fight.

"And give up my chance to gain control of both universes instead of just this one? Never!" Madara laughed darkly. The King snorted.

"May, climb upon my back. We will fight this fool together!" He pawed the ground, shaking his great antlers threateningly. Madara was not falling for it. The three others stood ready. It was a stand off then. I kept my eyes away from him. I couldn't let myself get caught! Suddenly there was another loud bang, and the room rocked again. No doubt one of Deidara's explosions. He appeared next to me as the smoke cleared, but Madara seemed to have been able to dodge. Deidara was panting hard and wide eyed.

"Theres no way we can take him down, we just aren't strong enough," he gasped.

"That is not the object," The king said slowly. With his eyes placed on the sides of his head, he could watch both Madara and Deidara, "The object is simply to get him to open the portal, and escape."

"and just how do you propose to do that?" Deidara asked, a frown taking over his face. The King did not respond. Suddenly fire was upon us, a large fireball being shot from what I assumed to be Madara's mouth. We were all quick to jump out of the way, Aki jumping sideways and bringing Deidara with him. These were my precious people, well, animals and person, was I really about to allow him to attack them? I was more or less limited with what I could do though, If I could get up close I could probably hit him, but Deidara had even said he was to powerful for him and The King combined, so what did that mean for me?

That was alright though, The King with his nimble cloven hooves was rushing Madara, his head lowered and his horns pointed. To me left I could see Natsu doing the same. They intended to stab him. Shit! What could I do? He was bound to attack them! Deidara was already on it, a midsized clay bird was faster, exploding in the Uchiha's face. The smoke would give us a perfect cover. Both deer connected to his chest at the same time. I was surprised he hadn't dodged it. Wait a second, somethings wrong.

When the smoke cleared, The first thing I saw was the blood. The Kings antlers were lodged in Madara's chest, while Natsu's were more around his stomach area. He coughed up blood. That's when I looked to his hands, he was flashing hand signs, weaving over and over, this incredibly long chain to preform some unknown jutsu.

"May, Run," The King grunted, attempting to tear the flesh of the assaulting man. Suddenly the King's legs gave out, and he fell from under me. Natsu's eyes went wide. I looked just In time to see the light fade from the great brute's eyes. He might have been larger, stronger, and taller than the other deer, but he wasn't immune to attacks. The King was bleeding from his neck, a knife sticking from ir. Madara had slit his throat before his antler had a chance to even touch him. I jumped from The King's course into Natsu's shoulder. The elder deer tore his horns from Madara and he was leaping away. I could hear a bomb detonate behind us. Natsu stopped, panting, near his fiance.

"Is he..?" She whispered. Natsu did not respond. He was. When I looked back at Madara, he was still treating hand signs, a bit bused from the bomb, however he was not moving. He was still weaving signs, and I supposed he couldn't move while he was working. Looking to my left, Aki was in awe. His ears dropped to the sides of his head and his mouth hung open.

"We can't charge him anymore," I stated, "it was dangerous to begin with, and now..." I trailed off, whipping tears from my eyes. I'd only meet him once, but the kindness and authority of him, the aura, was unbelievable. Deidara dropped down next to me from where I couldn't see.

"This is it un, its over," he said quietly.

"It can't be," I yelled, looking over to him.

"I'm almost out of clay," He said very solemnly. We were going to die. We couldn't save each other. I dismounted and wrapped my arms around him. We were going to die, we were going to die I repeated over and over in my head. Deidara returned my embrace.

"I love you," I said quietly, kissing his neck.

"I love you too," he buried his face in my hair.

"I really, I really, um, am happy that I got to spend so long with you," I stuttered, on the verge of sobbing. He didn't respond, only held me closer. Suddenly a deafening sound ripped though the room. My turned from it place in Deidara's chest to see Madara's final seconds. A blue line ripped though the long haired man,splitting him literally in two before it swallowed the two halves. My face I assumed, looked flabbergasted.

This was the portal. In trying to open it to gain control of both worlds, Madara himself became the portal instead of simply opening it. He was the original jutsu caster, and there for when the universe began to implode, it swallowed him first. I didn't say goodbye to Aki, and now I wished the I would have. I only turned and ran, grabbing Deidaras hand and pulling him with me with all the strength I had left. We only had a few seconds, it was growing larger by the moment.

"What are you doing?" He screamed over what I could only describe as white noise.

"Come on!" I didn't look back at him.

"I can't!"

"You can!" I jumped then, and to my surprise, Deidara did not resist. There wasn't really an inside of the portal. It dumped us out in a grassy knoll. Something alive, something alive, my eyes and arms were flying.

The Kings world stuck in my head. I was one more being than should be in that dimension, Deidara was one more being in my dimension. Being, a living thing, could it be any living thing? I didn't know, but I was about to find out. A man caught my eye, he was clearly homeless and rushing over to help us. I was screaming at him then to come closer, jumping to my feet. Could I really do that to him? I was going to. I quickly pushed the confused man though the portal with all my remaining strength, and hit the deck.

Suddenly it was quiet. I wondered if we were dead. I wondered if the world really had imploded and this was the afterlife. It was night here, should it be night in the after life?

"Mei?" I head Deidara's voice ask hesitantly. Slowly I opened my eyes. The portal was gone.

"Are we dead?" I blurted, my palms still sweating. He reached over and pinched me.

"That hurt un?" He asked, wide eyed. Yes, it sort did.

"Yeah," I responded, and reached out for him, my hand touching his arm. He was real for sure.

"I guess were not dead then?" He didn't sound so sure. Were we even in the right place? Wait a second, I'd know this place anywhere. No was was currently around, but judging by the kids play equipment and the fountain, we were in a park. In my town. I gasped.

I tackled Deidara, wrapping my arms around his neck and smothering his face in kisses.

"We did it! We made it!" I was yelling and grinning like mad, my blond boyfriend simply smiled up at me. He touched my face lightly. Suddenly our lips were smashed together in the most passionate kiss I'd ever received. Our lips fit together perfectly, our hands roaming across each other in silent bliss. The kiss would never have broke if it wasn't for a need for oxygen.

"We made it," He affirmed.

The last three weeks played over in my head. Our meeting, the travels and adventures, the cultural aspects and Deidara's different way of life, all of my new deer friends. I wouldn't of had it any other way.

We made our way to my house. I'd left my keys who knows where, and I could hear my fathers gruff voice behind the door as I knocked. It was thrown open, a loud, 'What the hell do you want?' thrown in my face. Then his eyes went wide. He was screaming, crying and hugging me all in one. The stairs were to the left of the door inside the house, a few yards back, and I could see my mother coming down them, tying her pink robe in the front. Then she too was screaming, running to hug me as my father put me down.

"Where have you been?"

"Are you alright?"

"Are you hurt?"

"Were you kidnapped?" Questions flew though the air like wildfire.

"I'm fine, please, please just give me a moment," I ushered, and took a deep breathe, "Mom, Dad, This is Deidara, he saved my life,"

Suddenly my dad was on top of him, shaking his hand and then pulling him into a hug. He repeated thank you, over and over, weeping.

"Dad, were really tired,do you think it would be alright if we went to sleep for a while?" I asked, and then he was dragging Deidara inside, nearly pushing me into the door and locking it behind him. I noticed several locks down, all sorts of dead bolts and chains. The front door looked like it belonged in a prison. They continued to bombard us with question, but I refused to answer, and shushed Deidara. Insisting on answering them all tomorrow. They didn't stop me as I took Deidara up to my room and shut the door.

I was glad for that. I assumed they thought that I needed my rest. They were more preoccupied with me than Deidara. I'm sure If I hadn't of said anything about him, they wouldn't have even noticed him standing there. I crawled into my own bed for the first time in what seemed like forever, and invited him to join me.

"No, I'm going to stay awake just a little bit longer hm," He answered. I guess maybe just wanted to make sure we were alright after all. I slipped into the most peaceful sleep I'd ever gotten.

Deidara stayed up the rest of the night, watching May sleep. She was his to protect and he'd be damned if he ever let anything happen to her ever again. He would stay up every night for the rest of his life if he had to. The police were called in the next morning. Deidara was hauled down town for questioning where (after being instructed by May) he told them his mother had been kidnapped, and he'd been born into her kidnappers household, he same man that kidnapped May. Thus explaining why Deidara did not have any sort of record of birth or social security number. They both insisted that they could not remember where there kidnapper had taken them, keeping to vague lies and the good old excuse of "I don't know."

They seemed to believe the two, and after May's missing persons report was taken down and Deidara issued citizenship, they were both allowed out of police custody. For months the FBI searched the area for clues, but as expected, nothing turned up. The police were very suspicious, and they almost didn't get away with it. They were free of fear and they could finally settle down. Most of all, they were happy. Together.

Akimitsu buried The King and the trio returned to the mountain of the deer. The three were surprised to find that they had not been harmed at all in the fight, besides some cuts and bruises, but more than a little sad at he passing of their dear leader and the loss of their friend Mei. Akimitsu was then voted by the village to become the new leader and took up residence in the temple. The lettering for "Mei" was carved into his one good antler. He went from zero to hero in three weeks, now having the most battle experience of any of the deer on the mountain. It had been at least fifty yeas since a deer was last summoned, and the deer who were used in battle then had long since passed.

Natsumitsu married Kunimitsu the next spring in the cherry blossoms, something May never got to see. They had a lovely pair of twins the next year. They too, all three of them, were happy too.

All because of a girl who nearly drowned in a lake.


End file.
